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Vol. 105, Nq^: w ;; ^ 'lA:y Wednesday. April 25,2007 Since 1905 


Wednesday, April 25, 2007 



Andrew Ngeow 

Over 1,000 people gathered at the College on Friday evening to participate in Relay for Life, which set a fund¬ 
raising record this year. The Butch Divas entertained a crowd during a ceremony to remember cancer victims. 

Relay raises nearly $203,000 


By Anthony Adragna 
Staff Writer 

The College’s fourth an¬ 
nual Relay for Life raised nearly 
$203,000 and brought over 1,000 
walkers to the field behind Kenyon 
Arena to support the American 
Cancer Society (ACS) on April 20- 
21. The current total represents a 
2.5 percent increase from last year, 
and is expected to rise up until the 
Aug. 15 fundraising deadline. 

Organized by Co-chairs Alex 


Braunstein ’09 and Chandler Ko- 
glmeier ’09, the event benefits the 
ACS, which will use the money to 
fund scientists performing cancer 
research and to patient support 
programs. Braunstein said the 
fundraising dollars would contin¬ 
ue to come in over the coming days 
raising the final total. 

“Our final fundraising to¬ 
tal, at the moment, is a little over 
$202,900, but we expect it to keep 
increasing in the next few weeks,” 


she said. “Still, that makes this 
year’s Relay the biggest fundraiser 
in the history of Middlebury Col¬ 
lege.” 

The College does exceedingly 
well at Relay when compared to 
other events at schools throughout 

See Fundraiser, page 3 


Tragedy highlights 
security concerns 


By Brian Fung 
News Editor 

Mary Lane ’10 heard the news 
from her mother shortly after 11 
a.m. last Monday morning: a gun¬ 
man was loose at Virginia Polytech¬ 
nic Institute. By noon, 33 people 
had been fatally shot in the dead¬ 
liest school shooting in American 
history. As soon as she found out 
what was happening, Lane reached 
for her cell phone, intending to call 
the roughly 30 friends she knew 
who attend the university. 

“I couldn’t get in touch with 
all of them, and it wasn’t until 
later that night that I did,” said 
Lane, who hails from Lynchburg, 
Va., roughly an hour’s drive from 
Virginia Tech. According to Lane, 
nobody could have imagined or 
foreseen the disaster that broke 
upon the Blacksburg, Va. campus 
last week. 

To bolster the safety of their 
students, and the peace of mind of 
their friends and family across the 
country, academic institutions na¬ 
tionwide are now addressing gaps 
in their security with renewed zeal. 
At Middlebury, last week’s incident 


raised the stakes for an emergency 
planning effort that had been un¬ 
derway since last spring. 

“We are very much in the 
middle of a comprehensive review 
of our emergency planning proce¬ 
dures,” said Secretary of the Col¬ 
lege John Emerson. 

Emerson, co-chair of the Col¬ 
lege’s Emergency Planning Steering 
Committee, is partly responsible 
for developing the protocols that 
would take effect at Middlebury 
in the event of a life-threaten¬ 
ing disaster. Earlier this year, the 
Committee issued a campus-wide 
e-mail describing how students 
should respond to the danger of a 
pandemic influenza. Other items 
up for inspection by the Commit¬ 
tee include the College’s technol¬ 
ogy infrastructure and commu¬ 
nication procedures — areas of 
operation that played crucial roles 
at Virginia Tech. 

“The need for the capability of 
instant communication through¬ 
out the community is something 
we definitely recognize,” said Em¬ 
erson, “and it’s something that’s 

See Colleges, page 4 


Latest tuition increase 
exceeds NESCAC peers 


By Derek Schlickeisen 
Senior Staff Writer 
At $46,910, Middlebury will 
have the second-highest price tag 
among New England Small Col¬ 
lege Athletic Conference (NESCAC) 
schools for the academic year begin¬ 
ning this fall. The higher costs come 
as the College scrambles to build an 
endowment comparable to its re¬ 
cent rise in national rankings, while 
also keeping its promise to replace 
many student loans with grants. 


The 2007-2008 comprehensive 
fee, just below Wesleyan Universi¬ 
ty’s, exceeds the NESCAC average by 
$552. More significantly, however, it 
also places the cost of attending the 
College at an average $1,348 more 
than the pricetag of its top four 
competitors: Dartmouth, Williams, 
Amherst and Bowdoin Colleges. 

“The schools with which we 
most compete now for students are 

See Tuition, page 2 




Lizzy Zevallos 

Juniors Max Nardini, Dean Atyia and Eric Hoest (left to right) debated campaign issues on Sunday evening. 

Candidates square off at debate 


Ilhan Kim 


Finally, it’s Spring 

Only a week after a surprise April Nor’easter dumped sleet and snow, 
Zeeshan Hyder ’07, Liz Bueno ’08, Eugenia Silva ’10, and Shanaz 
Chowdhury ’09 enjoy 80 degree weekend weather on Proctor Terrace. 


By Mia Lieb-Lappen 
Assistant News Editor 
The candidates for the Student 
Co-Chair of Community Council 
(SCCOCC) and Student Govern¬ 
ment Association (SGA) President 
were given a chance to publicly 
voice their opinions in a debate 
Sunday evening as they addressed 
issues ranging from campus smok¬ 
ing policy to the Commons system 
to the off-campus party scene. 

The two junior candidates for 
SCCOCC, Dean Atyia ’08.5 and 
Eric Hoest ’08, spoke in agreement 
on numerous issues but explained 
the different approaches they 
would take if elected. 

Even though Max Nardini ’08, 
former Wonnacott Senator, will 
run unopposed for SGA president, 
he did not ignore the opportu¬ 


nity presented at the debate to an¬ 
nounce his planned innovations 
for the SGA. 

The panel first asked each 
candidate to briefly introduce his 
platform. Nardini led by answering 
a question one first-year posed to 
him, “Why get involved?” Using the 
recent housing change as an exam¬ 
ple, Nardini, with several initiatives 
already in mind, responded that in¬ 
volvement in student government 
gives one the valuable opportunity 
to foster change. 

“[Being] SGA president would 
put me in a fine position to do so,” 
said Nardini at the debate. 

Hoest presented his platform 
for SCCOCC from a different an¬ 
gle. 

“Instead of coming up with 
specific initiatives, I would rather 
see myself as someone who could 


get clear opinions from all the 
members of our community,” he 
said. Hoest emphasized the need 
for the student voice to be heard 
and contribute to the decision¬ 
making process. 

Atyia presented his campaign 
for SCCOCC from yet another 
angle. “My platform is based on 
the need for change,” Atyia said. He 
then provided examples of fresh 
ideas, including all-access Col¬ 
lege debit cards, a concert series, a 
wireless campus and a deadline for 
teachers to hand back papers. 

The candidates varied based 
on previous leadership experi¬ 
ence and involvement on campus. 
Nardini’s previous leadership posi¬ 
tions include sophomore senator 
and Wonnacott senator. Moreover, 

See Debate, page 5 



can you spell it? 

“Eleemosynary”: (n) three 
women, two acts, one big word, 
page 20 


will work for grades 

Learn about the best jobs 
on campus for getting your 
homework done, page 16 



save some dough 

Find out about the new thrift 
store, Urban Exchange, which 
opened April 19, page 7 






































_ campusn ews 

College untouched by lending scandal 


25 A pril 2007 _ 

middbriefs 

by Colin Foss and Tom Brant 

Symposium to honor 
Gandhi’s non-violence 

A symposium to commemorate the 
100th anniversary of Mohandas Gandhi’s 
non-violent movement to end British sov¬ 
ereignty of India is currently underway. 
Pooja Shahani ’09, Micah Macfarlane ‘09 
and Vani Sathisan ’07, with support from 
the International Students Organization 
and Seeds for Peace, have created an 11 - 
day-long event that is scheduled to run 
through April 30 and consists of docu¬ 
mentary screenings, a discussion led by a 
student panel and workshops as well as a 
traditional Indian-style dinner. 

Sathisan said that the goal of the sym¬ 
posium is not only to celebrate Gandhi 
and his legacy, but to also create a discus¬ 
sion among College students about “what 
exactly we can do.” 

Events such as the screening of the 
documentary Crossing the Lines: Kash¬ 
mir, India and Pakistan will serve to create 
awareness about the issues that still exist in 
the Kashmiri region and present-day rela¬ 
tions between India and Pakistan. Hassan 
Abbas’ keynote address on April 30 will 
also help to create a dialogue about how 
Gandhi’s philosophies on civil disobedi¬ 
ence can be applied to today’s world. 

FAM, SGAC fund free 
HIV testing at Parton 

Last Thursday, Parton Health Center 
administered HIV tests to 15 students, and 
will do so again for another 15 this com¬ 
ing Thursday. Due to high demand for 
the tests, all slots for both days were filled 
within an hour of the distribution of an 
e-mail inviting students to participate. The 
$20 charge for each test is being covered 
by Feminist Action at Middlebury and the 
Student Global Aids Campaign (SGAC). 

SGAC President Brittany McAdams 
’09 said she believes that establishing per¬ 
manent testing at the Health Center would 
make the test readily accessible to any stu¬ 
dent who wants or needs it. 

The SGAC is currently working with 
Terry Jenny, associate director of the 
Health Center, to bring needle-free Ora- 
Quick testing to the Health Center. Mc¬ 
Adams said that regular HIV testing is an 
important part of preventing the spread of 
the disease. 

Programming team wins 
first place at competition 

A team of three Middlebury students 
finished in first place out of 37 teams in 
a computer programming competition at 
Rochester Institute of Technology on Sat¬ 
urday. 

The competition, part of an annual 
conference of the Northeast Consortium 
for Computing Sciences in Colleges, was a 
three-hour long marathon in which teams 
were given seven computer programming 
problems to solve. 

Middlebury’s team consisted of Anna 
Blasiak ’07, Kevin Chirls ’07 and Jeff Weh- 
rwein ’08, who were the only ones to solve 
all seven problems, said team sponsor and 
Associate Professor of Computer Science 
Daniel Scharstein. 

“The Middlebury team worked like 
a well-oiled machine, with Kevin in the 
driver’s seat, taking care of all the typing 
and the low-level implementations, while 
Jeff and Anna provided the high-level 
ideas and algorithms,” Scharstein said. 
“The team had already solved 5 problems 
only 90 minutes into the contest, and 
they dominated the top of the scoreboard 
throughout.” 

The team was coached by Associ¬ 
ate Professor of Computer Science Tim 
Huang and Assistant Professor of Math¬ 
ematics Frank Swenton. Each of the three 
members received a $100 reward. 


By Zamir Ahmed_, 

Associate Editor 

Middlebury College was not among the 
nation’s 400 colleges that received a letter from 
New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuo¬ 
mo cautioning school officials about a poten¬ 
tial conflict of interest with student loan lend¬ 
ers, according to financial aid officials at the 
College. A spokeswoman at the New York State 
Attorney General’s office could not confirm or 
deny whether the College received a letter be¬ 
cause the letters were sent confidentially. 

“This [preferred lender scandal] casts a 
black eye on the profession but we can say that 
we are not part of this,” said Patrick Norton, as¬ 
sociate vice president for Finance and control¬ 
ler. “We have not been contacted by the New 
York State Attorney General or the Department 
of Education. We may be, but if we are, we can 
say we’re clean.” 

The College does have a preferred lending 
contract with Nelnet, Inc., one of six student 
lenders that was initially asked to submit in¬ 
formation regarding lending practices during 
Cuomo’s investigation, according to informa¬ 
tion on the New York State Attorney General’s 
Web site. The company is still currently under 
investigation by Cuomo for its lending prac¬ 
tices, although not for its relationship with the 
College. 

In a voluntary agreement with Nebraska 
Attorney General Jon Bruning signed on April 
20, the Nebraska-based Nelnet pledged to 
adopt a code of conduct governing its relation¬ 
ship with college financial aid offices and said it 
would post a review of the company’s business 
practices on its web site, according to a press 
release from the company. In addition, Nelnet, 
which has over $23 billion in net student loan 
assets, agreed to commit $1 million for a na¬ 
tional program to educate families about how 
to pay for college. 

The College switched to Nelnet, which 
is known officially as the National Education 
Loan Network, as its preferred lender of choice 
for alternative loans in January of 2006. Alter- 


CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 

better endowed on a student-by-student ba¬ 
sis,” said President of the College Ronald D. 
Liebowitz. “The College has risen in the rank¬ 
ings, and so the overlap group has changed 
quite dramatically over the last fifteen years.” 

Dean of Admissions Bob Clagett ex¬ 
plained that Middlebury’s smaller endow¬ 
ment on a per-student basis is part of the 
motivation behind the College’s anticipated 
five-year, $500 million capital campaign. 
Middlebury’s per-student endowment now 
stands at $322,000, less than half that enjoyed 
by both Williams and Amherst. 

Clagett said that the size of the College’s 
need-based financial aid packages will expand 
as the cost of a Middlebury education rises, 
helping to attract qualified students for whom 


native loans are loans that are not guaranteed 
by the federal government and do not include 
Stafford loans. The College chose to leave the 
federal direct lending program because greater 
borrower benefits were available in the private 
lending industry. The benefits range from bet¬ 
ter customer service to a lower interest rate over 
time, according to financial aid officials. 

“The overarching reason was borrower 
benefits,” said Norton. “There are borrower 
benefits that students receive from a private 
lender that they don’t get from the federal gov¬ 
ernment’s direct lending program. At the end 
of the day, it was ‘how do you reduce the debt 
burden to the student.’ It was that simple.” 

In a press conference on March 15, Cuo¬ 
mo revealed that his investigation into the 
$85 billion-per-year student loan industry 
had uncovered numerous conflicts of inter¬ 
est throughout the industry, which benefited 
colleges at the expense of students and par¬ 
ents. These conflicts of interest included 
such practices as revenue sharing with col¬ 
leges, all-expense paid trips for financial 
aid officers and call centers for schools that 
were staffed by employees of private lenders. 
According to Norton, the College does not 
engage in these practices and has not been 
implicated in any wrongdoing. 

During its hunt for a preferred lender, the 
College looked at the programs and benefits 
offered by six private companies before decid¬ 
ing on Nelnet as the lender that best suited the 
College and its students. 

“We had completed a very comprehen¬ 
sive analysis,” said Director of Student Finan¬ 
cial Services Kim Downs, whose office man¬ 
ages over $30 million in aid per year. “We really 
wanted to look at everything that these indi¬ 
vidual lenders could provide to students. Every 
decision we made was in the student’s best in¬ 
terest and for the student. There was nothing 
received on our end. ” 

The focus of Cuomo’s investigation into 
the student loan industry — an investigation 
that at least six other state attorneys general 
have joined — is colleges’ preferred lenders 


those costs could be prohibitive. He added, 
however, that institutions with larger endow¬ 
ments can more easily support expanded stu¬ 
dent aid. 

“Top colleges all meet the full need of any 
student who is admitted, so there shouldn’t be 
dramatic differences between our packages,” 
said Clagett. “But institutions that are even 
better-endowed than Middlebury can afford 
to have an even lower loan expectation than 
Middlebury.” 

Liebowitz said that the Strategic Plan ap¬ 
proved by the Board of Trustees last May plac¬ 
es a long-term emphasis on reducing the loan 
portion of financial aid packages — a move 
that follows suit with prominent Ivy League 
schools like Harvard and Princeton, whose 
multi-billion dollar endowments have sup- 


lists. Although some colleges maintain a pre¬ 
ferred lenders list with only one lender listed, 
any list is voluntary and students are free to 
borrow from other lenders. However, accord¬ 
ing to a number of news sources, 90 percent 
of students rely on preferred lender lists when 
picking a lender. According to financial aid of¬ 
ficials at the College, Middlebury’s preferred 
lender list is only meant to serve as a guide for 
students, and students remain free to select 
lenders not on the College’s list. 

“As a service to students and families we 
put on this [preferred lender] list the lend¬ 
ers we believed to provide the best borrower 
benefits,” said Norton. “With that said, it is not 
mandatory that students use the College-listed 
preferred lenders — they can select any lender 
for alternative loans.” 

The College’s decision to leave the federal 
direct lending program was part of a nation¬ 
wide trend toward using private lenders for 
student loans. Currently, only two of the 20 
top-tier colleges in the United States remain in 
the federal direct lending program. Congress 
has undertaken steps in recent years to draw 
colleges back to the program, and has proposed 
cutting interest rates for federal loans in half or 
rewarding colleges that steer students to federal 
loans. Amendments to federal programs, how¬ 
ever, would not necessarily mean a better deal 
for students.” 

“I can tell you that if the feds are drop¬ 
ping [interest rates] in half, the private lend¬ 
ers are going to respond in kind,” said Downs. 
“The borrower incentives offered by the pri¬ 
vate lenders will likely be more attractive; 
however, our office will evaluate all borrower 
benefits on an annual basis, including those 
offered by the direct lending program.” 

Still, the College would not rule out reen¬ 
listing in the direct lending program if students 
would benefit from such a change. 

“If the direct lending program run by the 
federal government creates a more competi¬ 
tive product for students and families, then the 
College would certainly explore a return to di¬ 
rect lending,” said Norton. 


ported the switch to full grants. 

“We have a sort of bifurcated student 
body now, where very needy students get a 
very large grant — that’s why the average 
grant is about $28,000 — while others pay the 
full tuition,” said Liebowitz. “We would love to 
have more socioeconomic diversity, and it’s a 
goal that our Strategic Plan talked about, but 
it’s going to take time and a lot of resources.” 

Forty-five percent of students currently 
attending the College receive some form of 
financial aid. 

In working to replace loans with grants, 
the College hopes not only to better compete 
with its peer institutions for top students, but 
also to give those students more financial free¬ 
dom after graduation. 

“The other driving force is that we want 
to make sure that the level of debt that stu¬ 
dents incur here doesn’t have an impact on 
long-term vocational plans,” said Clagett. 
“And our average debts [in recent years] were 
getting to the point where they could have had 
that impact.” 

Beginning with the class of 2011, finan¬ 
cial aid packages will reduce the average debt 
held by graduating students from $18,000 to 
$ 12 , 000 . 

“For an almost $200,000 education over 
four years, going $12,000 into debt is not 
a bad deal, said Clagett. “And at that level it 
should not be having any impact on post¬ 
graduate plans.” 

Accepted students in town on Monday 
for one of two “Campus Preview” days said 
they were trying not to let concerns about 
Middlebury’s high price tag influence their 
final college decision. 

“I think considering how much tuition 
at top colleges is, you can’t really worry about 
the difference a few hundred dollars more a 
year makes,” said Erin Jackson, a potential 
matriculate. “There are so many more impor¬ 
tant factors.” 


Wesleyan 
Middlebury 
Bates 
Tufts 
Conn. College 
Bowdoin 
Trinity 
Hamilton 
Colby 
Amherst 
Williams 

Middlebury’s total mandatory fees rank second among peer academic institutions, its costs 
trailing behind only Wesleyan University. 




Tuition ranks second-highest among peers 











campun ews 

Fundraiser supports fight against cancer 



Continued from page i 

New England. This year’s walk will put them 
close to the top throughout New England. 
Currently, the Yale Relay for Life, held on 
April 14-15, had raised $211,000 as of April 
16, making it the top fundraising Relay in the 
Northeast and the fifth nationally. 

“Middlebury is a Relay gem,” Braunstein 
said. “Youth and community Relays across 
the nation want to know what our secret is 
and how such a small school and community 
can be so successful. We are the number-one 
youth Relay per capita in the nation by a long 
shot, and again the top-10 county per capita 
in the nation.” 

Students, faculty, staff and community 
members began to gather around 2:00 p.m. 
Friday to set up for the event. Many teams 
brought tents so they could sleep close to the 
track where they would walk. 

The 18-hour event officially began at 
3:00 p.m., with teammates beginning the 
walk around the field in shifts that lasted 
throughout the night. With participants 
filtering in throughout the afternoon and 
night, organizers were uncertain of a final 
tally of walkers, but reported that the num¬ 
ber topped at least 1,000. Braunstein said she 
was thrilled by the turnout from the event. 

“I think we got extremely lucky with the 
weather this year, which helped our turnout,” 
she said. “No one wants to be inside Kenyon 
[Arena] on the first real day of spring. The 
event ran so smoothly that I felt pretty use¬ 
less a good amount of the time — our com¬ 
mittee was on task and making it happen all 
night long. I don’t know exactly how many 
people showed but my guess is around 1,000, 
maybe more during ceremonies.” 

The top individual fundraisers were 
Maura Casey ’07, John Re and Jeremy Ward, 
with the top team fundraisers Dawn of A 
New Day, Life Science and Pirates of the Dia¬ 
mond all raising over $10,000. 

Event organizers attempted to have a 
variety of activities that would interest walk¬ 
ers of all ages, such as theme laps and a kids’ 
table. Student organizations helped provide 
entertainment at the event, with perfor¬ 
mances by such a capella groups as Stuck in 
the Middle and the Mamajamas and other 
performances from Dawn’s Basement and 
Riddim. 

Opening Ceremonies for the event be¬ 
gan at 6:00 p.m. with speeches by President 
of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz and 
Cathy Trudel, a cancer survivor and mem¬ 
ber of the Relay team Brain Scramblers. Fol¬ 
lowing the speeches came the Survivors Lap, 


with participating cancer survivors making 
their way around the track before being met 
and joined by their caretakers and the rest of 
the event participants. 

At 9:00 pm. came the Luminaria Cer¬ 
emony, when walkers completed a silent 
lap in remembrance of those who have died 
from cancer. Walkers lit candles in honor of 
the victims, and then watched a slideshow of 
those who have battled the disease. 

“The most powerful part of Relay for 
me is always the silent lap of the Luminary 
Ceremony, when the word ‘Hope’ is lit up 
behind the hill and you can see over a thou¬ 
sand people walking the track with candles,” 
said Braunstein. “Lighted bags line the track 
with the names and pictures of loved ones 
who have passed on from cancer. The silence 
is almost deafening — it’s so eerie and yet 
incredibly beautiful.” 

Wendy Rodriguez ’10 also commented 
on the powerful effect of the ceremony. 

“I was very happy to see such student 
involvement and seeing such huge student 
turnout,” she said. “The luminaria part of the 
night was very emotional and touching at the 
same time. I have never met anyone who’s 
had cancer, no one in my family has had can¬ 
cer, but I’ve heard the intensity of cancer so 
when I saw everyone crying around me, it re¬ 
ally hit home that this is a reality.” 

Braunstein said the efforts of the College’s 
student body impressed her immensely. 

“When I saw kids from my dorm out on 


the Relay track at three in the morning on 
a Friday night, walking in the mud and 40- 
degree temperature, I felt immense pride 
in the Middlebury student body,” she said. 
“Midd-kids truly rally for Relay. They make 
up more than half of our participant total 
and raise hundreds of thousands of dollars 
for the ACS every year. They give our event 
its energy and power. I can’t even describe 
how proud I am to go to a school with peo¬ 
ple like that.” 

Kelsey Bakas TO reiterated Braunstein’s 
comments. 

“I thought it was great and well-run. 
It’s the first time I’ve ever participated so it 
was very moving,” she said. “Even though it 
was just walking, you were out supporting 
any way you can and getting out and rais¬ 
ing money. It was kind of overwhelming to 
see how many individuals had been afflicted 
by it. It was really something to see all the 
light and the candles and the upbeat music. 
It would have been nicer if more students 
could have spent the night. But overall I 
thought the student core was great.” 

While the College supports the event 
greatly, Braunstein hopes they will some day 
create a paved track for the event. 

“It would be great if the school paved 
us our own Relay track so we don’t have to 
worry about destroying athletic field,” she 
said. “I think as long as we keep bringing in 
new leadership and volunteers, the event will 
grow on its own.” 


A Princetonian on Korea 



Chris Heinrich 


Gilbert Rozman, Musgrave Professor of Sociology at Princeton University, speaks to a large crowd in McCardell Bicentennial Hall 
during his lecture, “The Six-Party Talks: Korea the Pivot in the Transformation of Northeast Asia.” The lecture was held on April 18. 



25 April 2007 



overseas 

briefing 

When it comes to being 
green, Germans do it right 

by Katie Flagg 

MAINZ, GERMANY — Today, in a course 
I am taking about literary portrayals of 
America, our professor asked us to ex¬ 
press our pre-existing ideas of the United 
States. For me, the exercise was strange. 

In my broken German, I identified myself 
as an American and then listened as the 
others discussed the images that come to 
mind when they think of our country. 

The girl sitting next to me admitted 
without prompting, “I think of fat chil¬ 
dren who only eat hamburgers.” 

I chuckled, but the remark smarted 
— as did the following commentary on 
American politics, the religious right, cre¬ 
ationism in school curriculums and rabid 
patriotism. And then there was, of course, 
still the issue of the environment. 

“They travel everywhere in cars,” 
offered another student, who professed to 
having once visited Orlando. “Not once 
did I see people walking around on the 
street.” 

Supermarkets without end, nonex¬ 
istent public transportation, a nation of 
consumers — not a pretty picture. 

Side-stepping any debate about poli¬ 
tics, I could only agree with at least part 
of what my new peers had to say. Since 
landing in Germany three weeks ago, I’ve 
been struck by the bottom-up apprecia¬ 
tion for environmentalism apparent in the 
taglich , or daily, lifestyle here. I purchased 
a bicycle right away and joined the ranks 
of merry Mainzers pedaling along the 
Rhine on their daily errands. I learned 
early on to bring along my own bag when 
grocery shopping. The soda machines dis¬ 
pense Coca Cola in reusable glass bottles, 
which can be returned for a significant 
refund. Even in my ever-faltering German, 
I can recognize all of the ingredients in 
most of the foods I purchase. And, after 
puzzling over color-coded garbage bins 
in my kitchen, I learned that German law 
mandates that I meticulously sort my gar¬ 
bage — something 90 percent of Germans 
are willing to do, according to BBC News . 

As I rode home after class, the han¬ 
dlebars of my bicycle laden with groceries, 
I couldn’t help but think: never would 
this happen at home. It’s not possible, in 
the town were I live, to walk to a grocery 
store, let alone safely bicycle to one. The 
ubiquitous bicycle lanes, the pedestrian 
shopping districts and the compact neigh¬ 
borhood grocery stores that I’ve grown 
accustomed to here don’t exist — at least 
not in suburban America. 

Although the United States has 
made significant steps in the last 30 
years to clean up its industrial practices, 
as a nation we’re reluctant to make any 
changes to our daily lifestyle. We consider 
environmentalism at home a hassle to be 
avoided. But the ease and efficiency with 
which Germans approach recycling and 
the pedestrian lifestyle argues otherwise. 

What this all means is that I’m left to 
blush when students here discuss America 
at large. As much as I will defend our 
hamburger-eating youngsters, on some 
counts I can only agree: when it comes to 
being green, we have some catching up 
to do. 


























4 2 S April 2007 __ 

college 

shorts 

by Zamir Ahmed, Associate Editor 

The Citadel to install 
dormitory locks 

In response to the shootings at Virginia 
Tech last week, Charleston, S.C.-based mil¬ 
itary college The Citadel will install locks 
on all cadet rooms by next semester in an 
effort to increase student safety. The instal¬ 
lation of locks breaks with the college’s tra¬ 
dition, which is based on the sparseness of 
military life and the school’s honor code. 

The proposal to install locks on all res¬ 
idential doors had been under discussion 
before the Virginia Tech tragedy. According 
to school officials, the shootings highlight¬ 
ed the need for locks to protect students, 
as well as to protect the college from legal 
action. 

Currently, male cadets do not have 
locks on their room doors. Female cadets 
have locks on the inside of their doors. 

The Citadel’s Board of Visitors, which 
is responsible for the direction and super¬ 
vision of the college, approved the instal¬ 
lation of locks at its regularly-scheduled 
weekend meeting. It is estimated that in¬ 
stalling locks on all barracks doors will cost 
the college $125,000. 

— CNN.com 

Study finds gender wage 
gaps emerge early 

A recently released study by the Amer¬ 
ican Association of University Women Ed¬ 
ucational Foundation found that a pay gap 
exists between females and males only one 
year after graduation. The study also found 
that the gap in wages widens after multiple 
years in the work force. 

The study found that women make 
only 80 percent of the salaries of their male 
counterparts after only one year after col¬ 
lege graduation. After 10 years in the work 
force, women on average earned only 69 
percent of what their male peers made. 

Despite taking into account factors 
such as hours, occupation and parent¬ 
hood, the study found that one-quarter of 
the wage gap could not be explained. The 
group speculated that the gap was the re¬ 
sult of gender discrimination. 

The study also found that, on average, 
a woman’s salary did not accurately reflect 
her level of education. Although females 
average a marginally higher grade point 
average than males in every major, accord¬ 
ing to the study women who attend highly 
selective colleges have the same salaries as 
males who attend less-selective colleges. 

— MSNBC.com 

BU student arrested for 
shooting-related threats 

A part-time Boston University (BU) 
student was banned from campus on April 
19 after pleading not guilty to charges 
stemming from threats he allegedly made 
regarding recreating the Virginia Tech 
shootings. 

Twenty-year-old Andrew Rosenblum, 
who is enrolled at the BU-affiliated Metro¬ 
politan College, allegedly sent online instant 
messages to a Wheelock College student he 
dated in 2005, purportedly threatening to 
kill her and her friends just hours after the 
shootings in Blacksburg, Va. 

Rosenblum was arraigned on three 
counts of threatening to commit a crime 
at the Roxbury Division of the Boston Mu¬ 
nicipal District Court on April 19. He was 
released after posting a $50,000 bail. 

Rosenblum is being monitored by a 
24-hour GPS monitoring device and is un¬ 
der house arrest. In addition to not being 
allowed on the BU campus, he is prohib¬ 
ited from entering Wheelock premises and 
from contacting the people he allegedly 
threatened. He will return to court on June 
13 for a pre-trial conference. 

—The Daily Free Press 


_campus news 

Colleges galvanized after shootings 

Continued from page i 


been underscored by the tragedy at Virginia 
Tech.” 

Upgrading the system 

Since the shootings, a number of institu¬ 
tions, including Middlebury, have been inves¬ 
tigating the possibility of introducing a text 
message-based emergency notification system. 
Most students today rely more on cell phones 
than e-mail or the landline phones, making text 
messages the way to go, according to Vice Presi¬ 
dent of Communications Mike McKenna. 

“What we learned when we were doing 
the research on the pandemic flu is that stu¬ 
dents don’t really check their e-mail all that 
much, or that the phone that’s in their room 
isn’t even turned on, because they use their 
cell phones all the time,” said McKenna. 

According to administration officials, 
students will be required to register their cell 
phones, likely via BannerWeb, starting in the 
fall. Should a crisis arise, the College could 
automatically and remotely mass-distribute 
text messages to students notifying them of 
the threat. 

The new decision to collect cell phone 
numbers follows close on the heels of a March 
21 mandate calling for students to prepare 
two evacuation plans in anticipation of a de¬ 
bilitating pandemic flu threat. A full list of 
emergency procedures tackling a variety of 
threats will be released in the fall, according to 
a public statement issued by President of the 
College Ronald D. Liebowitz on April 20. 

The College is also considering a cam- 
pus-wide siren system to supplement the text 
message solution. The sirens would function 
much like tornado sirens that currently oper¬ 
ate in the American Midwest. 

“If that thing starts to ring,” said McKenna, 
“you better check your e-mail or your phone 
because something’s afoot, whatever the cause. 
Watch for more information to come.” 

In the event of a disaster, the College’s 
main Web page would also be replaced by an 
emergency distress message. 

But informing students of a threat and 
the ability to effectively respond to it require 
two different sets of solutions. Little in the 
way of a formal policy has been developed 
to respond to a hostile, armed gunman, ac¬ 
cording to Dean of the College Tim Spears. 
If a so-called “active shooter” were to begin 
a rampage today, chances are that students 
would have to wait for help as a response 
was developed on-the-fly. But the Emer¬ 
gency Planning Committee hopes to change 
all that. 

According to Emerson, the College’s 
protocol with state and local police “is all be¬ 
ing reviewed and being made more efficient, 
clearer [and] better understood on both sides, 
to make sure we don’t have wasted motion or 
wasted time in the face of the kind of emer¬ 
gency that [happened at Virginia Tech].” 

However, it remains unclear how the De¬ 
partment of Public Safety will coordinate with 
local and state law enforcement in an emer¬ 
gency situation. 

“Once new protocols are implemented 
for a notification system, Public Safety will be 
involved,” wrote Assistant Director of Public 
Safety Larry Rooney in an e-mail. “But until 
those new protocols are decided on, it is dif¬ 
ficult to say what Public Safety’s role will be, 
exactly, as it relates to the notification policy.” 

Under current arrangements, while wait¬ 
ing for authorities to arrive during an armed 
incident, Public Safety would likely initiate 


a campus lockdown by activating security 
measures that are a feature of the electronic 
access-card system installed on College resi¬ 
dence halls. Buildings unsecured by the sys¬ 
tem would be locked manually by Public 
Safety officers. 

According to Emerson, access cards faced 
stiff opposition when they were first intro¬ 
duced at the College. 

“It was a very, very controversial step in 
the student community, and the President and 
the Board [of Trustees] felt that we couldn’t 
afford the risk of not taking that step,” said 
Emerson. “But do we want the capability of 
knowing our dorms are secure and locked in a 
crisis situation? You bet we do.” 

Anticipating the unthinkable 

The effectiveness of the access-card sys¬ 
tem, however, depends chiefly on proper 
maintenance of the College’s larger technol¬ 
ogy infrastructure. Today, that infrastructure 
supports and protects not only electronic ac¬ 
cess cards, but also computer servers, commu¬ 
nications equipment and financial and other 
sensitive information. 

“Frankly,” said Emerson, “in this day and 
age, it’s hard to imagine any crisis that we 
might face that isn’t going to involve com¬ 
puter services, technical services, the Web, e- 
mail, computer-generated telephone calls and 
things like that.” 

To safeguard against threats that could 
neutralize the College’s primary electronic 
assets, auxiliary servers have been established 
off-campus that will allow interaction with 
parents, students and the media to continue 
at full capacity, uninterrupted. 

If the question 
is, ‘When will we 
be through?’ the 
answer is never. 

We will never be 
through. 

— John Emerson 


“We could still communicate with people 
inside the community even if this place was 
shut down,” said McKenna, gesturing to the 
honeycomb of cubicles and computers that 
composes the College’s Department of Com¬ 
munications. As a member of the Emergency 
Planning Committee, McKenna is charged 
with monitoring the news, which is nearly al¬ 
ways running on a widescreen plasma TV at 
one end of the honeycomb, and planning for 
the worst. 

“It’s not the kind of thing that’s fun to think 
about,” said McKenna. “It’s not the favorite part 
of my job, but it’s something I see as part of my 
responsibility: to watch the news and look at 
what happens, even if it seems unrelated to a 
small college in Vermont. You may not be able 
to prevent things from happening, but you can 
try to prepare for things happening.” 

“Preparedness” has in recent days become 
the watchword of college administrations 
across the country, and Middlebury is no 
exception. Here, officials now stress constant 
vigilance in the face of potential disaster. 

“I think we all like to believe that Middle- 
bury’s rural character and comparative isola¬ 
tion insulate us from the kind of tragedy that 
happened at Virginia Tech,” wrote Dean of 


the College Tim Spears in an e-mail. “Unfor¬ 
tunately, part of the shock that follows from 
incidents like the one in Blacksburg is the 
realization that senseless killings can happen 
anywhere.” 

“In some sense, Middlebury’s problem is 
that we see ourselves as being a safe environ¬ 
ment,” said Emerson. “I say it’s a ‘problem,’ 
because if you think and assume you are safer, 
then you potentially expose yourself to risks. 
We can’t afford to make the assumption that 
we’re safer simply because we’re in Addison 
County in rural Vermont.” 

Developing a full-fledged emergency plan 
is not going to happen overnight, according 
to officials. A plethora of issues must still be 
addressed, and once all conceivable major ca¬ 
tastrophes have been raised for discussion, the 
College must then formulate plans to respond 
to the potential threats. Even when the plans 
are complete, said Emerson, the Emergency 
Planning Committee will still be at work, con¬ 
ducting annual reviews of the policies they 
enact. 

“If the question is, ‘When will we be 
through?’ the answer is never,” said Emerson. 
“We will never be through.” 

A nation mourns 

The day after the killings at Virginia Tech, 
students in Blacksburg gathered for a candle¬ 
light vigil to mourn the victims. Communi¬ 
ties and individuals across the nation did the 
same. At Middlebury, Mead Memorial Chapel 
saw over 70 individuals file in and out over the 
course of an afternoon. At the vigil’s end, Gus 
Jordan, director of the Scott Center for Spiri¬ 
tual and Religious Life, approached the altar 
to blow out each of the 33 candles that had 
been lit in honor of the lives lost, including 
the gunman’s. 

“I reached out and took the first candle,” 
said Jordan, “and I suddenly got this feeling, 
like, ‘this is a person. This is a real person, and 
for me to blow this out symbolizes the death 
of that person.’” 

Pausing before the candles, Jordan recog¬ 
nized each one before blowing it out. “This is 
representing a real person,” he said, recount¬ 
ing the story. “And for me, it became real in 
that moment, that real lives were lost.” 

“What started to calm things down was 
when the victims’ identities came out,” said 
McKenna. “All of a sudden, there was a real 
human face, and a loss, and that slowed up 
[the media barrage], but it was really some¬ 
thing I never expected to see.” 

For her part, Lane was surprised that 
some Middlebury students were still oblivi¬ 
ous to the incident at Virginia Tech up to a full 
day after the fact. And once the community 
had realized what had happened, the shoot¬ 
ings received little attention both in and out 
of classes. 

“I was surprised how little the teachers 
seemed to regard this incident,” said Lane, 
who asked one of her professors if she could 
postpone a presentation because she was still 
distraught about not being able to contact one 
of her friends at Virginia Tech. According to 
Lane, the professor told her to wing it at the 
end of class. 

“Although academics are important,” 
Lane said, “the way you prevent these things 
from happening is not to lose sight of the 
emotional needs of the students. From what 
I’ve heard from my friends [at Virginia Tech], 
for a lot of them this is going to be what they 
remember most about college, which is hor¬ 
rible, because college is supposed to be four of 
the best years of your life.” 


public safety log April 16 - April 23,2007 


DATE 

TIME 

INCIDENT 

CATEGORY 

LOCATION 

DISPOSITION 

4/18/2007 

12-8:45 p.m. 

Theft 

Laptop Computer 

Ross 

Referred to MPD 

4/18/2007 

11:00 a.m. 

Hate Crimes 

Vandalism (Graffiti) 

Battell 

Referred to Commons Dean 

4/18/2007 

8:02 a.m. 

Attempted Theft 

Vandalism (Fuel Pumps) 

Service Building 

Referred to Facilities Management 

4/21/2007 

9:40 a.m. 

Vandalism 

Light Fixture 

Milliken 

Referred to Facilities Management 

4/21/2007 

5:30 p.m. 

Vandalism 

Window 

Prescott 

Referred to Facilities Management 

4/22/2007 

1:25 a.m. 

Vandalism 

Light Fixture 

Hadley 

Referred to Facilities Management 


The Department of Public Safety reported giving two alcohol citations between April 16 and April 23. 







campus news 


25 April 2007 


5 


INSIDE THE SGA ELECTIONS 2007 


Before heading to the online polls on Thursday, read up on the candidates for SGA president and 
Student Co-Chair of Community Council in The Campus’ annual SGA election preview. 


Meet your SGA Presidential candidate 


Max Nardini ’08 



Junior Max Nardini’s Student Government Association (SGA) 
presidential campaign features a list of policy items ranging from so¬ 
cial life issues to raising student awareness of the Darfur crisis. 

According to Nardini, as SGA President, he would continue 
the SGA’s program that offers busing to New York City and Boston 
over school breaks. Nardini also plans to continue supporting initia¬ 
tives to make students more aware of carbon neutrality and climate 
change issues, as well as proposals to raise awareness of problems in 
the Sudan. 

Nardini believes he can create a debate forum at the College in 
which students, professors and outside speakers can debate specific 
political issues. 

“Speakers will offer multiple viewpoints and students will en¬ 
gage in academically exciting discussions afterwards,” said Nardini. 

Nardini is one of the founding members of Xanadu, a new night¬ 
club on campus, which he believes can contribute greatly to social life 
at the College. 

“Xanadu is the perfect way to address the social issues on cam¬ 


pus,” said Nardini. According to Nardini, Xanadu gives students the 
feeling that they are off-campus, while remaining in the safety and 
comfort provided by the College. 

Nardini believes his past experience in student government will 
benefit him if elected SGA President. After serving as the current 
Wonnacott Senator and former Sophomore Senator in the SGA Sen¬ 
ate, Nardini said that “you expect to deal with certain things, and 
other things come up” in student government. For example, Nardi¬ 
ni cited his work with students and faculty on the issue of banning 
smoking on campus. Nardini said that an important part of being 
SGA President will involve negotiating and taking others’ needs into 
consideration. 

“A major responsibility of student government is to mediate 
things as they arrive, to make constructive solutions,” said Nardini. 
“We need to represent students’ voices to make our time here valu¬ 
able.” 

— Michelle Constant , 
Staff Writer 


Meet your Student Co¬ 



candidates 


Dean Atyia ’08.5 

If elected the Student Co-Chair of Com¬ 
munity Council (SCCOCC), Dean Atyia’s 
’08.5 plans would include the creation of an 
outdoor spring concert, planned by a new 
committee comprised of students from al¬ 
ready-existing programming boards. 

The concert will not only allow students 
to enjoy live music and good weather but, 
according to Atyia, will provide a location 
for student organizations to set up booths, 
make T-shirts and display what students 
have been doing throughout the year. 

The concert would be organized by 
a new Concert Committee, which would 
consist of two Middlebury College Activi¬ 
ties Board (MCAB) members, two WRMC 
members, six non-affiliated students and 
one faculty advisor. 

Atyia’s other goals include continuing 
the process to serve liquor at Xanadu and al¬ 
lowing access cards to act as debit cards that 
can be charged at the Grille, Midd Xpress 
and laundry machines. 

Atyia also wants to remain open to 
student input and would hope to restruc¬ 
ture Community Council meetings to allow 
students to propose their own suggestions 
without prior approval in the agenda. To fa¬ 
cilitate student involvement, Dean wants to 
start a Web site or online forum on which 



Ilhan Kim 

students can discuss issues they wish to see 
changed through the Community Council. 

Atyia began his student government ex¬ 
perience serving as the First-Year Feb Sena¬ 
tor of the Student Government Association 
during his first semester at the College be¬ 
fore joining the Council, on which he has 
served for two semesters. 

Atyia feels confident speaking up, and 
said that one of his strongest skills is his 
ability to get things done. Atyia feels he is 
a versatile and approachable member of the 
student body who knows what the students 
want. 

— Kerren McKeeman , 
Staff Writer 


Eric Hoest ’08 

Junior Eric Hoest’s primary goal as Stu¬ 
dent Co-Chair of Community Council (SC¬ 
COCC) would be to improve communication 
among members of the community to ensure 
that equal attention be given to all voices. Ac¬ 
cording to Hoest, he would seek input from the 
community regarding important issues so that 
decisions made by the Council would best re¬ 
flect the wishes of all members of the College. 

According to Hoest, by collaborating with 
the Student Government Association (SGA) 
and President of the College Ronald D. Liebow- 
itz, student opinion will hopefully be strength¬ 
ened, heard in each arena and fed back to the 
Community Council. The Council currently 
maintains a low profile among the student 
body, Hoest believes, but the candidate hopes 
that he can increase the Council’s prominence 
and contribute to decision-making that will 
benefit everyone. 

Other issues Hoest wishes to tackle as SC¬ 
COCC are the smoking policy, social houses, 
alcohol policies, diversity and environmental 
issues as handled by the College. Before gradu¬ 
ating, Hoest wants to pursue these aims and 
create policies that benefit the community best. 
Despite his focus on these issues, Hoest said he 
is not tied down to a rigid agenda. He said that 
as problems arise, he will be there to take them 
on to the best of his ability. 



Ilhan Kim 


Although never having served as a mem¬ 
ber of the Community Council, Hoest consid¬ 
ers himself an active member of the College 
community. He has been involved in the resi¬ 
dential life system at the College, having served 
as a residential advisor. He also gained experi¬ 
ence in student government as he worked as an 
SGA cabinet member during the 2005-2006 
academic year. 

Hoest said that he is ardent and passion¬ 
ate about aiding the community and is more 
than open to forging relationships with people 
in order to hear their views and help get their 
opinions heard. 

— Chelsea Utterback, 
Staff Writer 


Debate addresses hate speech, concert funding 


Continued from page i 

he had experience working to initiate blue 
lights, Xanadu, and the new smoking policy, 
to name a few. 

“This has armed me for future pursuits,” 
said Nardini. Hoest emphasized his involve¬ 
ment in various positions such as alumni re¬ 
lations co-chair, member of the crew team, 
and leadership roles in residential life. Atyia, 
on the other hand, was a Feb representative 
on SGA and has had previous experience 
with the Community Council. 

“I think I might have valuable insight in 
the best way to get [the Council] to collabo¬ 
rate with the SGA,” he said. 

Despite their different angles of ap¬ 
proach and various previous experiences, 
the three candidates expressed similar view¬ 
points on several of the issues the panel 
asked. For example, all candidates were eager 
to improve social life and were willing to col¬ 
laborate with MCAB and other pre-existing 
social programming boards. 

“They run the organizations well,” Hoest 
said. “The goal of the Community Council 
shouldn’t be to find ways to restrict or artifi¬ 


cially enhance them, but rather it should be 
to enable these able leaders to continue what 
they are doing.” 

The Commons 
should not be a 
system of restraint. 
— Dean Atyia’08.5 

Atyia, however, suggested the formation 
of a separate committee to hold a concert se¬ 
ries. “I would like to see something indepen¬ 
dent of IHC and MCAB with little oversight 
of the administration,” he added. 

Hoest and Atyia came to agreement on 
other issues such, as engaging the student 
body and bridging the gap between students 
and administration. Moreover, they were in 
concurrence with supporting environmen¬ 
tal awareness and MOQA. They all agreed 
to have no tolerance for homophobic graf¬ 
fiti and supported the need for disciplinary 
action. Nardini has participated in the ho¬ 
mophobia discussion forum and suggests 


a more open campus-wide debate. Hoest 
thought such issues should be addressed 
with incoming first-years. 

“Find ways through dialogue for this to 
be a discussion right off the bat so people are 
confronted with their own feelings,” he sug¬ 
gested. 

Atyia did not blame the administration 
but rather advocated “social castigation.” 

All three candidates were skeptical of in¬ 
stituting a social honor code, which the panel 
presented as one option. 

“It is a quick fix that doesn’t actually fix 
anything,” Nardini said. Atyia agreed that it 
was not necessary and would not get to the 
root of the problem. 

All three candidates were in favor of 
continuing the Commons but had sugges¬ 
tions regarding the room draw system. Atyia 
called for more mobility. 

“It should not be a system of restraint,” 
he said. Nardini responded to the panel’s 
reference to an increase in competition for 
rooms. “The drawback is balanced by the fact 
that you will be able to get something great,” 
he said. 

Another social issue discussed was the 


off-campus party scene. Nardini said he be¬ 
lieves Middlebury students are looking for 
more to do, which fueled his own involve¬ 
ment in Xanadu. 

“We need to provide the great social 
opportunities on campus that have waned 
in the past year as social houses have faced 
more restrictions,” he said. 

Hoest pointed out the need to get people 
to and from these parties safely, while Atyia 
suggested serving liquor at Xanadu. 

“We need a means to cater to the entire 
community,” he said. 

The last issue debated was the smoking 
policy. Hoest thought the new policy was a 
good compromise and that specific cases 
could be looked into further. Nardini agreed 
and compared smoking complaints to noise 
complaints. 

“As far as I can see,” said Nardini, “our 
policy has been working.” Atyia, on the other 
hand, thinks smokers should be given a pa¬ 
tio in return for the loss of some freedom. 
“We have to do something to re-compensate 
smokers,” Atyia said. 

Voting opens this Thursday and will take 
place online. 























6 


25 April 2007 



(jUtbMeburg (Eampus 

IS CURRENTLY ACCEPTING 
APPLICATIONS FOR THE FOLLOWING 
POSITIONS FOR THE 
FALL 2007 SEMESTER 


ASSOCIATE EDITOR: ASSISTS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF AND MANAGING 
EDITOR IN ALL ASPECTS OF NEWSPAPER PRODUCTION. WORKS 
CLOSELY WITH SECTION EDITORS. COPY-EDITING AND LAYOUT 
SKILLS A MUST. 


NEWS EDITOR: RESPONSIBLE FOR CONCEIVING, ASSIGNING AND 
EDITING NEWS STORIES. ALSO RESPONSIBLE FOR LAYOUT OF 
SECTION. MUST BE AWARE OF CAMPUS NEWS AND HAVE A MIND 
FOR CREATIVE JOURNALISM. 

LOCAL NEWS EDITOR: RESPONSIBLE FOR CONCEIVING, ASSIGN¬ 
ING AND EDITING LOCAL NEWS STORIES. ALSO RESPONSIBLE 
FOR LAYOUT OF SECTION. MUST BE INTERESTED IN TOWN AND 
STATE POLITICS AND COMMUNITY EVENTS AND HAVE A MIND 
FOR CREATIVE JOURNALISM. 

OPINIONS EDITOR: RESPONSIBLE FOR LEADING EDITORIAL 
DEBATE, DRAFTING WEEKLY STAFF EDITORIAL AND EDITING 
OPINIONS PIECES, LETTERS TO THE EDITOR AND EDITORIAL 
CARTOONS. ALSO RESPONSIBLE FOR LAYOUT OF SECTION. 

MUST HAVE A KEEN INTEREST IN CAMPUS LIFE AND SHARP EYE 
FOR CONTROVERSY. 

FEATURES EDITOR: RESPONSIBLE FOR CONCEIVING NOVEL, IN¬ 
TERESTING AND PERTINENT STORY IDEAS AND ASSIGNING STO¬ 
RIES. THIS POSITION OFFERS AN EXCITING LEVEL OF FREEDOM, 
ALLOWING THE EDITOR TO SHAPE THE SECTION, AS OPPOSED 
TO THE SECTION SHAPING THE EDITOR. ALSO RESPONSIBLE 
FOR LAYOUT OF SECTION. 

ARTS EDITOR: RESPONSIBLE FOR CREATING AND ASSIGNING AR¬ 
TICLES BASED ON ARTS-RELATED EVENTS AT THE COLLEGE AND 
IN THE SURROUNDING COMMUNITY. MUST BE ABLE TO THINK 
OUTSIDE THE BOX AND CONCEPTUALIZE INNOVATIVE FEATURE 
IDEAS. ALSO RESPONSIBLE FOR LAYOUT OF SECTION. 

SPORTS EDITOR: ASSIGNS AND EDITS ALL SPORTS STORIES. 
SHOULD BE FAMILIAR WITH MEMBERS AND COACHES OF 
MIDDLEBURY ATHLETIC TEAMS AND IN TOUCH WITH NON¬ 
VARSITY ACTIVITIES. MUST HAVE A KEEN EYE FOR POTENTIAL 
SPORTS-RELATED FEATURE STORIES. ALSO RESPONSIBLE FOR 
LAYOUT OF SECTION. 

COLUMNISTS: RESPONSIBLE FOR CONTRIBUTING WEEKLY OR BI¬ 
WEEKLY COLUMNS IN ANY SECTION OF THE NEWSPAPER. MUST 
BE WILLING TO RESEARCH ISSUES AND DEVELOP ORIGINAL, 
WELL SUPPORTED STANCES ON CAMPUS ISSUES. 


PLEASE NOTE THAT ASSISTANT EDITORSHIPS ARE 
AVAILABLE IN ALL EDITORIAL DEPARTMENTS. 


Egg Donor Program at Fletcher Allen 


Give an aspiring parent new hope. 

Women needed for anonymous egg donor program. 



The Egg Donor Program at Fletcher Allen 
needs donors. With this gift of love, you 
can help an infertile couple increase 
their chances for conception. 

And you will be generously compensated for 
your time and participation. If you are a non¬ 
smoking healthy female between 21 and 33 
and are interested in learning more about the 
egg donor program, call 1-866-602-4874. 


Fletcher 

AllenA 

HIAITH CARS.- 


H 


The 

UNIVERSITY 
°f VERMONT 

Vermont's Academic Health Center 

WHERE KNOWLEDGE IS 
YOUR BEST MEDICINE 


www.FletcherAllen.org/EggDonation 


Interested in business 
experience at Middlebury? 

Check out the PAID positions available for 
next year on The Campus Business Team. 


PHOTO EDITOR: RESPONSIBLE FOR COORDINATING STAFF 
PHOTOGRAPHERS AND TAKING PHOTOS ASSIGNED BY SECTION 
EDITORS AS WELL AS EDITING AND PLACING PHOTOS IN THE 
LAYOUT. 

PRODUCTION ASSISTANT: RESPONSIBLE FOR DESIGNING PAGES 
AND ASSISTING SECTION EDITORS WITH LAYOUT. KNOWLEDGE 
OF LAYOUT SOFTWARE A PLUS. 

ILLUSTRATOR: RESPONSIBLE FOR PRODUCING CARTOONS AND 
EXECUTING ILLUSTRATIONS REQUESTED BY SECTION EDITORS. 


Distribution Coordinator: 

Responsible for distributing 2,000 newspapers to newsstands around 
campus as well as a handful of locations in the town of Middlebury. 
Position requires either a car (reimbursement at IRS rate for gas and 
mileage) or a College van license. Applicants MUST have Wednesday 
mornings available from 8:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m., no exceptions. 

Envelope Stuffer: 

This position requires that the individual stuff and label weekly mailings to 
our subscribers, and deliver them to the Forest mailroom. 


FOR MORE INFORMATION 
OR TO REQUEST AN ELECTRONIC APPLICATION, 
PLEASE CONTACT 

CAMPUS@MIDDLEBURY.EDU 


Technology Consultant 

This person is paid to be on call during production nights and then 
available throughout the rest of the week to answer any tech question, or 
fix any problems that happen with our office equipment. 



To apply for any of these positions e-mail: 

campusbiz@middlebur y. edu 























25 April 2007 


local 

The Middlebury Campus 



Urban Exchange 

□ PENS □ N MAIN 



For months, the clingy exterior of 73 Main St. has been plastered 
with colorful, enigmatic posters that promised that “something exciting” 
was in store for April. On Friday, the suspenseful signs were peeled away 
at last and replaced by a flurry of streamers and balloons, as Middlebury’s 
newest clothing and gift store, Urban Exchange, threw open its doors. 

The store’s walls are enlivened by mock-grafitti spray painted by lo¬ 
cal high school students. Those walls house rack upon rack of apparel 
sorted by size, with an ample selection of new clothing, jewelry and ac¬ 
cessories supplemented by a steady stream of used wares. 

“People bring in perfectly good quality, trendy, name-brand stuff, 
and we give them cash on the spot,” said store owner Karen Curavoo. 

Curavoo was motivated to try her hand at retail by what she per¬ 
ceived to be “the need for a store for young adults,” a need which she 
believes had gone previously unmet in Middlebury. 

While the premise behind the store is simple, making the vision 
a reality was not. When asked to detail the amount of preparation be¬ 
hind the store’s grand opening, Curavoo exclaimed, “A lot! Seriously, 
way more than I thought.” Because she holds another job as Weybridge’s 
Town Clerk, Curavoo was forced to get the store up and running in her 
spare time. “It’s been around the clock,” she said. 

By Curavoo’s assessment, however, the preparation paid off. “Busi¬ 
ness on the first day was awesome,” she said. “It was so exciting to see so 
many people come in. We lost count at 300 people.” 

Many of the customers pouring through her doors on Friday came 
by word of mouth. 

“We didn’t advertise much, because we kind of wanted to have a 
slow first week so we could test things out,” said Curavoo. Now that the 
store is beginning to gain traction, Curavoo plans to kick operations into 
high gear. Among Urban Exchange’s specific goals is the maintenance of 
an adequately-sized children’s section. 

“You get girls in sixth and seventh grade who like to shop, but 
they’re still in kids’ sizes,” Curavoo explained. “If you don’t do a kids’ 
section, they miss out.” 

Financial constraints, however, are an issue. 

“You can’t really make any money off of a kids’ section, so we’re 
hoping the other part will support it,” Curavoo said. 

Concerns related to space also factor into such considerations. “We 
don’t have a lot of room,” Curavoo admitted. “We would like to have a 
good selection of men’s clothing, too. We had a lot of guys in here yes¬ 
terday, but the guy’s stuff is hard to get. It’s hard to get guys to sell you 
their stuff.” 

Ultimately, Curavoo said, it’s a matter of compromise. 

“We’re going to have to strike a balance or be a little crowded some¬ 
times so we can have both children’s and men’s clothing.” 

Given their unique aims, policies and merchandise, Curavoo does 



Lizzy Zevallos 



Lizzy Zevallos 


not regard nearby thrift shops such as Round Robin and Neat Repeats as 
direct competitors. “I don’t think we offer the same things,” she said. 

Where there is in fact, overlap, Curavoo believes Urban Exchange 
boasts the upper hand in its willingness to pay for clothing which some 
individuals may be reluctant to merely donate. 

“I’m sure the thrift shops have Abercrombie and stuff like that, but 
because they don’t offer to pay for it, I don’t think they will get a lot of 
high school kids to donate their old Abercrombie pants to them.” 

Curvaroo believes her store will have its own niche in local retail. 

“I don’t want to compete with them,” Curavoo said. “I want to 
complement what they have and try to offer things that aren’t available 
somewhere else in Middlebury.” 

The ability to offer these novel items hinges on the store’s willing¬ 
ness to avoid modeling itself extensively after others. 

“People have been saying, ‘oh, you should do piercings,”’ Curavoo 
said. “And I say, ‘no, Rainbow Room does that. Go over there.’” 

Karen Curavoo’s daughter, Jessi, is employed by the store. She said 
the reaction of her peers has been overwhelmingly positive. “I think it’s a 
good thing for Middlebury. It’s fun,” Jessi Curavoo said. “It’s nice to just 
come up here and hang out. I think we have a lot of different stuff that a 
lot of stores here don’t have.” 

Although Urban Exchange strives to create an atmosphere which 
appeals to pre-teens and teenagers, Curavoo believes the store also has 
plenty to offer an older crowd, Middlebury students included. 

“A lot of College kids don’t have wheels or don’t want to go to Bur¬ 
lington every time they want to get a Gap or Abercrombie or Old Navy 
item, and that’s what they have to do. It stinks.” Curavoo suggested that 
this out-of-town exodus may pose a detriment to the local economy. 
“Once you go to Burlington for clothes, you do everything else there, 
too. So I’m hoping [the store] will help keep Middlebury vital.” 

College students will certainly prove to be integral not only for 
clothing sales, but also for its donation. 

“I would love to get the College students into the habit of regularly 
bringing their stuff in,” Curavoo said. She hopes to garner student sup¬ 
port in this effort, perhaps having a handful of individuals “sort of deal¬ 
ing right there out of their dorms, buying, making it convenient so stu¬ 
dents want to recycle their clothing and periodically bring it up here.” 

While Karen Curavoo harbors few illusions about the uphill battle 
she may face, she is ultimately optimistic about the future. 

“I just want to have the store run well enough so that we can con¬ 
tinue to be here,” Curavoo said. “I’ve heard it’s really hard to make it in 
retail in Middlebury. That’s why you see a lot of stores with a lot of high 
priced things. I’m hoping that we can make ends meet.” 

—Kelly Janis, Local News Editor 


Touring and Tasting 

a behind-the-scenes look at how 
to make a cold one, page 8 



Vermont-Wide Web 

state legislature to vote on bill 
providing state-wide service, 
page 8 














25 April 2007 


localnews 




Sampling Otterlv refreshing brews with Kimler 


can be enhanced by the addition of an orange 


By Andrea Glaessner 
Local News Editor 

As I stepped outside the car in the parking 
lot of Otter Creek Brewery, the warm, pungent 
scent of yeast filled the air. Even though it was 
Sunday and the factory was closed for the day, 
the slightly peculiar and homey smell of fer¬ 
mentation was rife. It was April 15, day one of 
the unseasonable Nor’easter storm swept across 
Vermont, and also the date of my 21st birthday. 
After two attempts to present my ID had failed, 
probably due to my emanating a vibe of over- 
confidence in my brand new legality, I was des¬ 
perate for someone to card me and customarily 
confirm I had gone through the rite of passage 
to legally consume alcohol. I entered the brew¬ 
ery sampling center, which remains open on 
Sundays for visitors, and was met with a cordial 
welcome from a kind man behind the counter. 

“What would you like to sample?” asked 
the man who had introduced himself as Kim. I 
requested a taste of the India Pale Ale and, to my 
utmost satisfaction, I was finally asked to show 
my ID. I breathed a long sigh of relief and told 
Kim about my predicament. He laughed and di¬ 
rected me toward a shelf on the opposite side of 
the room from which to pick out a free pint glass 
for my birthday. 

I stayed at the tasting center for about an 
hour, trying everything on tap before sipping on 
a few other Otter Creek special brews that Kim 
Kimler, a part-time employee at the brewery, 
brought out from the cooler in the back. As he is 
a kindergarten teacher in Salisbury, Kimler only 
works a few times a week at the brewery, but 
catching him behind the bar is a real treat Not 
only is his knowledge of Otter Creek beers vast, 
but he is also a delightful person to chat with 
and our conversation was certainly a highlight 
of my visit 

Kimler patiendy summarized the intricate 
process of fermentation and gave a brief intro¬ 
duction to the world of beer tasting. I discovered 
that the delicate hints of coffee and chocolate in 
Wolaver’s Oatmeal Stout actually resulted from 
roasting the malt used to brew this dark, rich 
beer. On the other end of the spectrum, White 
Sail, Otter Creek’s brand new summer brew, 
has a light bite of citrus which comes from the 
actual addition of orange peel and coriander to 
the water, malt, yeast and hops that produce this 
Belgian-style white beer. The crisp, fruity flavor 


slice, creating a perfeedy refreshing beverage for 
a hot summer day. 

I was so intrigued after my visit, I was dying 
to take a tour to learn more about the process of 
brewing these delicious beers. Since tours are of¬ 
fered three times a day and everyday of the week 
except Sunday, I had to plan a return trip in or¬ 
der to tour the actual brewing factory. 

When I returned a week later, this hme 
on a weekday afternoon, I was thrilled to find 
Kimler behind the counter once again, offering a 
friendly greeting, this time recognizing me from 
my previous visit. 

As he did the last time, Kimler asked what 
I would like to sample and was quick to call in 
the marketing assistant Kate Corrigan when I 
told him I was writing a profile on the brewery. 
Corrigan was equally friendly, offering a bevy of 
information about upcoming events and new 
beers set to come out in the upcoming summer 
months. 

Along with Otter Creek’s White Sail, the al¬ 
ways-pleasing Summer Ale came out again this 
month. In May, Otter Creek fans can look for¬ 
ward to the release of Wolaver’s Wit Bier, a Bel¬ 
gian-style white beer that is similar to White Sail 
but, like all Wolaver’s beers, it is organic. 

In fact, Corrigan mentioned that this year 
marks Otter Creek’s tenth anniversary of pro¬ 
ducing Wolaver’s organic beers. In the 1990s, 
Wolaver’s was a California-based company that 
contracted other breweries to produce its organ¬ 
ic brand of beer. Eventually, it grew large enough 
to buy Otter Creek in 2003. Otter Creek cur- 
rendy brews Wolaver’s Oatmeal Stout, Brown 
Ale, Pale Ale and India Pale Ale as well as the Wit 
Beir that will come out in May. 

Corrigan noted that Otter Creek is quite 
unique for having had such a long heritage of 
producing organic beer. “Budweiser just came 
out with its own organic beer so it’s kind of cool 
that we’ve been doing that already for the past 10 
years,” Corrigan noted. 

I told Corrigan how impressed I was with 
the new White Sail, confessing that I had tried 
a different brand of Belgian-style white beer 
called Blue Moon, which I initially enjoyed but 
now found bland and uninteresting in compari¬ 
son to White Sail. I was shocked when Corrigan 
revealed that Blue Moon is actually produced by 
Coors. Corrigan, bemused by my reaction, said, 
“If there’s anything your students get out of this 


Chris Bohorquez 

Opening a bottle of Stovepipe Porter, Kimler heeds a customer request to sample the dark ale. 


Chris Bohorquez 

Otter Creek’s White Sail is an unusually fruity, Belgian-style white beer., brewed locally 


article I hope it is to not trust what you see on 
the label. You have to be a real sleuth to figure 
it out, but many beers market themselves to 
seem like microbrews or specialty, organic beers, 
when they are really just big-name corporations 
behind the fancy logo.” 

Another new brew to hit the shelves this 
April is the Cuckoo Bock, one of Otter Creek’s 
World Tour specialty beers. According to the Ot¬ 
ter Creek Brewery website, “Brewmaster Steve 
Parkes procured Vienna malt, pilsener malt, two 
types of Munich malts, and hops and yeast all 
the way from Germany, in an effort to make this 
beer as authentic as possible. The Otter Creek 
version will be light and slightly sweet, with a 
fresh aroma.” Even though Mai Bocks tend to 
be strong beers, the Otter Creek version was just 
strong enough. I bought one of the 22 ounce 
bottles and was pleasantly surprised to find 
there was no beer bloating aftermath that usu¬ 
ally follows heavier beers. 

After polishing off a few samples of the beers 
on tap, including the Helsinki Gold brewed with 
juniper and rye, the always favorite Copper Ale 
brewed with no fewer than six varieties of malt 
and the light, yet enticingly bitter Wolaver’s India 
Pale Ale, I was ready for a tour of the factory. 

Kimler led me, along with three other beer 
lovers, around the factory to experience how 
beer is made and to see first hand what goes on 
in a day at the factory. Otter Creek is the fifti¬ 
eth largest brewery in the country and the third 
largest in the state, just behind Magic Hat and 
Long Trail. Vermont, interestingly comprises 
most breweries per capita out of any other state, 
boasting 19 breweries total. 

Otter Creek’s 35 full and part-time employ¬ 
ees take various shifts to keep the Middlebury 
factory running smoothly almost 24 hours a day. 
Each day about five batches of beer are brewed. 
Beer is made in 40-barrel batches and there are 
31 gallons in a barrel, which equals a whole lot of 
beer being pumped out daily. 

Kimler went on to explain what the four 


main ingredients in beer are and how they func¬ 
tion. Water, malt, yeast and hops each contribute 
differently to the beer. Malt is the sugar in beer, 
and it contributes to the beer’s texture, flavor, 
color and foam. Hops provide the beer’s bitter¬ 
ness, aroma and flavor and yeast is what Kimler 
called “the sugar eating fungus.” During the fer¬ 
mentation process it is the life of the party, ac¬ 
cording to Kimler’s metaphorical explanation of 
how yeast makes beer. 

Along with having a lucid understanding of 
the science of beer, Kimler is also well versed in 
the history of beer. My ears perked up when he 
shared an anecdote about India Pale Ale (IPA), 
explaining its origin. According to Kimler, when 
the British used to bring IPA over to India it 
would spoil before it reached land. Eventually, 
the British colonists found that adding extra 
malt and hops produced a less perishable beer. 
Extra malt increases alcohol content, killing off 
the bacteria that causes beer to spoil, while the 
extra hops work as a natural preservative. Kim¬ 
ler noted that today we have refrigeration so the 
need to add excess malt and hops is no longer 
necessary, but brewers continue the tradition for 
the IPA because the flavor has become a favorite 
for many, this writer included. 

I could share everything I learned on my 
trip but that would defeat the purpose. Otter 
Creek Brewery is another Vermont gem of a 
local business and a tour is certainly worth ev¬ 
ery minute. Coming up on May 5, Otter Creek 
will be participating in the statewide Green-Up 
event in which Vermonters across the state clean 
up trash off the streets and dumping it at reg¬ 
istered sites. Otter Creek will be hosting a free 
lunch on that day from 11:30 to 2 p.m. and will 
have a dumpster on the site to collect trash from 
people who participate in the event, offering 
free pint glasses to those who stop by to drop off 
their trash. If you have not visited Otter Creek, 
check it out on May 5th or whenever you feel 
like a good beer and some friendly conversation. 
Kim Kimler is waiting. 


Vermont legislature wants Internet, NOW! 

By Emma Moros 
Staff Writer 


Cellular phone service and broadband In¬ 
ternet access have never been available to every 
Vermont citizen, but with the introduction of 
Vermont House Bill 248 and the work of the 
Internet for All, NOW! committee, that may be 
about to change. 

Currently, 87 percent of Vermonters have 
broadband access and 50 percent have access to 
a cellular signal. The limits of current coverage 
areas in Vermont result from the fact that it is 
a rural state and neither broadband nor cel¬ 
lular providers will provide access if they are 
not guaranteed enough customers to ensure a 
worthwhile profit. 

“Verizon, Comcast and other players in the 
market for Vermont go to populated areas where 
they can get a return on their investment,” said 
Vermont House Representative Michael Mar- 
cotte. “If there aren’t at least fourteen residents 
per square mile in an area, most providers won’t 
do a buildout.” 

In Vermont, a state with an extremely low 


population density, this means that many ar¬ 
eas are simply not covered. A lack of coverage 
is no matter to simply brush aside, according 
to Mary Evslin, one of the organizers of a non¬ 
partisan lobbyist group that promotes univer¬ 
sal internet access. 

“Today you might be using the internet to 
send a dorky joke or a Christmas Card, but even 
in a year, you will be needing more,” said Evslin. 
“The skills of the future are going to demand 
the Internet as the Erie Canal of your genera¬ 
tion and the lifeblood of work in your era.” 

Evslin works with the Internet for All, 
NOW! Committee, whose goal is to assure the 
passage of a bill which gets the state started im¬ 
mediately towards the goals of the e-state-ini- 
tiative. The group has no political affiliation 
and its members are “non-partisan, veteran 
volunteers that are passionate about Vermont,” 
according to Evslin. 

The universal cellular and broadband ac¬ 
cess push is called the “e-state-initiative” and 
was originally proposed by Governor Doug¬ 
las. In a speech to the Vermont Legislature de¬ 


scribing the initiative, Douglas explained that, 
“it revolutionizes our telecommunications 
infrastructure by setting the goal of mak¬ 
ing Vermont the nation’s first ‘e-state’ where 
quality data and cellular voice coverage and 
high-speed broadband are available to any 
Vermonter anywhere within our borders, at 
any time by 2010.” 

The specific bill that Internet for All, NOW! 
supports is House Bill 248. This bill cuts out the 
initial cost of building infrastructure necessary 
for Internet and cellular providers to provide 
access. It does this by funding the building of 
cellular and broadband towers through the sale 
of state bonds. Internet providers can then lease 
the towers from the state and the state will pay 
back the investors. 

Representative Warren Kitzmiller, one of 
the representatives who sponsored this bill, ex¬ 
plained that with passage of the legislation, “the 
state will build cellular and broadband towers, 
which will initially be paid for by bonds. The 
companies that use the infrastructure will pay 
for much of the project by leasing the towers 


and other equipment from the state.” 

One potential problem with the bill is that 
it is possible the state might not be able to repay 
investors should companies choose not to lease 
the towers. Kitzmiller however, did not believe 
this would pose a serious problem. 

“When the state of Vermont issues bonds, 
they are bought by investors all over the country 
and all over the world,” said Kitzmiller. “People 
trust Vermont bonds. They have a high credit 
rating and reputation around the world.” 

The fate of House Bill 248 is still far from 
certain. It has passed the Vermont House, but 
not the Senate. Given that the Senate will soon 
no longer be in session, Bill 248 may not pass 
during this term. According to Evslin, this is the 
worst-case scenario. 

“We don’t want the government to put this 
off into a study group,” she said. “The goal is to 
have everybody in the state to have access by 
2010,” she said. 

Should the bill pass, Vermont could be¬ 
come the first state in the country to offer uni¬ 
versal cellular and broadband access. 











advertisement 


25 April 2007 


Recently, the campus community received notice of an anonymous written attack against a 
Middlebury College student based on sexual orientation. 

The Religious Life Council, and the undersigned members of religious organizations andfaith 
traditions, adamantly reject the use of any hate language, and particularly hate language that invokes 
the name of God, against any group on our campus. 

We stand united in affirming the human dignity of all people. For those of us who are theists, 
we affirm that all human beings are made in the image of God, regardless of sexual orientation, gender 
identity and expression, race, ethnicity, religious beliefs, physical ability, or age. 


Doug Adams, Center for Campus Activities and 

Leadership, Church of the Assumption (St. Mary’s) 

Eva Alminana ’10, Hillel 

Valkyrie Anderson ’07, Prayz 

Karina Arrue ’07, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship 

Ezra Axelrod ’08, Hillel 

Gruia Badescu ’07, Christian Orthodox Association 
Nick Ballen ’09, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship 
Danielle Barbeau ’07, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, 
Newman Club - Catholic Students Association, Prayz 
Liane Barrera, Library and Information Services, 

Church of the Assumption (St. Mary’s) 

Kelly Ann Benmon ’10, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, 
Prayz 

Ashley Bens ’09, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship 
Alexandra Bertagnolli ’10, InterVarsity Christian 
Fellowship 

Steven Bertolino ’00, Library and Information Services, 
InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Advisor; Newman 
Club, Advisor, Church of the Assumption (St. Mary’s) 
Corinne Beverly ’10, Prayz 
Nathan Blumenshine ’08, InterVarsity Christian 
Fellowship 

Priscilla Bremser, Math Department, Champlain Valley 
Unitarian Universalist Society 
Brittany Burnett, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, 

Rachel Butera 710, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, 

Jessica Campbell ’09, Newman Club - Catholic Students 
Association, 

Charlotte Chase, Center for Campus Activities and 
Leadership, Congregational Church of Middlebury 
Elizabeth Chatelain ’07, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship 
Rebecca Chine ’10, UUM- Unitarian Universalists of 
Middlebury 

Diana Chiu ’09, InterVarsity4ChnSnan Fellowship 
Julio Tian-Fa Chong ’08, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship 
Francois Clemmons, Music Department, Champlain 
Valley Unitarian Universalist Society 
Marcia Collaer, Psychology Department, Middlebury 
United Methodist Church 
Ann Crumb, College Advancement, St. Stephen’s 
Episcopal Church 

Patch Culbertson’08.5, Newman Club - Catholic Students 
Association 

Jennifer Currie ’08, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship 
James Calvin Davis, Religion Department, 

First Presbyterian Church, Hudson Falls NY 
Susan DeSimone, Biology Department, Champlain Valley 
Unitarian Universalist Society 
Matt Dickerson, Computer Science Department, 

Memorial Baptist Church 

Theodore Dickerson TO, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship 
Maria Dickinson ’07, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, 
Newman Club - Catholic Students Association 
Alison Duquette ’07, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship 
John Emerson, Dean of Planning, Math Department, 
Congregational Church of Middlebury 
Amy Emerson, Budget Office, Retired, Congregational 
Church of Middlebury 

Melissa Espert ’09, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship 
Cheryl Faraone, Theater and WAGS Departments, 
Congregational Church of Middlebury 
Emer Feighery ’09, Newman Club - Catholic Students 
Association 

Rachel Fong ’07, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship 
Molli Freeman-Lynde ’08, UUM- Unitarian Universalists 
of Middlebury 

Bruce Fryer ’08, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship 
Angelo Fu TO, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship 
E. Paul Gallagher TO, Newman Club - Catholic Students 
Association 

Hallie Gammon TO, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, St. 
Stephen’s Episcopal Church 

Lisa Gerstenberger ’07, UUM- Unitarian Universalists of 
Middlebury 

Andrea Giddings ’07, Prayz 

Owais Gilam ’08, Islamic Society of Middlebury College 
Mark Gleason, Facilities Planning, Congregational Church 
of Middlebury 

Benjamin Grimmnitz ’08, UUM- Unitarian Universalists 
of Middlebury 

Alethea Gross ’09, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, 

Prayz 

Megan Guiliano ’08.5, Newman Club - Catholic Students 
Association 


Rudi Haerle, Sociology-Anthropology Department, 
Emeritus, Church of the Assumption (St. Mary’s) 
Elisabeth Emmons Hahn TO, St. Peter’s Episcopal 
Church 

Andrew Haile ’07, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, 

Prayz 

Mana Hatjigeorgiou, Religion Department, Advisor to the 
Christian Orthodox Association 
Josh Hendrickson ’07, Fellowship of Christian Athletes 
Lizz Herron-Sweet ’09, Prayz 

Skek Hosoi ’07, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Prayz 
Kathy, Jewett, Chemistry Department, 

Memorial Baptist Church 

Matthew, Johnstone ’07, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship 
Augustus, Jordan, Director, Scott Center for Spiritual and 
Religious Life, Middlebury United Methodist Church 
Laurel Macaulay Jordan, Chaplain of the College, 
Middlebury United Methodist Church 
Emily Kilborn ’07, Newman Club - Catholic Students 
Association 

Jane Kimble, College Advancement, Memorial Baptist 
Church 

Ricky Klein ’07, UUM- Unitarian Universalists of 
Middlebury 

Amanda Kleinman ’09, Hillel 

Sarah Ladner ’09, Congregational Church of Middlebury 

Daphne Lasky ’07, Hillel 

Sarah Lauing ’07, Hillel 

Danielle Levine ’07, Hillel 

Bobby Levine ’08, Hillel 

Laura Lieber, Religion Department, Havurah/ Hillel 
Karl Lindhoim, Dean of Advising, American Studies, 
Champlain Valley Unitarian Universalist Society 
Antonia Lo^kno, English and American Literature 
Department, Champlain Valley Unitariari Universalist 
Society 

Marie Lucci ’08, Newman Club - Catholic Students 
Association 

Hannah Madson TO, Newman Club - Catholic Students 
Association 
Kylie Marks ’07, Hillel 

Rene Marshall, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship 
Catherine McCarthy ’09, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship 
Dotty McCarty, Communications, retired, St. Stephen’s 
Episcopal Church 

Meg McFadden ’06.5, InterVarsity Chrisnan Fellowship, 
Prayz 

Ellen McKay, Chaplain’s Office, 

Weybndge Congregational Church 
Michael McKenna, Communications, 

St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church 
Alison Mehravan TO, Prayz, InterVarsity Christian 
Fellowship, 

Catherine Michalek TO, Newman Club - Catholic Students 
Association 

Brett Millier, English and American Literature 

Department, Champlain Valley Unitarian Universalist 
Society 

Jessica Minton TO, Newman Club - Catholic Students 
Association 

Dorothy Mitchell ’09, Newman Club - Catholic Students 
Association, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship 
Mia Monnier TO, UUM- Unitarian Universalists of 
Middlebury 

Diane Munroe, Environmental Studies, Congregational 
Church of Middlebury 

Jeff Munroe, Geology Department, Congregational 
Church of Middlebury 

Lauren Nazarian ’07, Fellowship of Christian Athletes 
Sarah Nelson ’08, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship 
Michael Nevadomski ’09, Newman Club - Catholic 
Students Association 

Jono Newton ’06, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, 
Newman Club - Catholic Students Association 
Eva Nixon ’09, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship 
Victor Nuovo, Philosophy Department, Congregational 
Church of Middlebury 

Tegan O’Brien ’09, Newman Club - Catholic Students 
Association 

Richard O’Donohue, Dining Services, Champlain Valley 
Unitarian Universalist Society 
Michael Olinick, Math Department, Havurah 
Judy Olinick, German Dept/ Russian Dept, Havurah 
Stephen Oster, Chemistry Department, Richard Hooker 
Anglican 


Heather Panglc TO, Newman Club - Catholic Students 
Association 

JeeYeon, Park ’08, InterVarsity Chnstian Fellowship 
Kathryn Patton ‘09, UUM- Unitarian Universalists of 
Middlebury 

Chalene Pek Yin Chi TO, Fellowship of Christian 
Athletes, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship 
Carolyn Perine, Admissions Office, 

Church of the Assumption (St. Mary’s) 

Susan Personette, Associate Vice President for Facilities, 
Champlain Valley Unitarian Universalist Society 
Michelle Personick ’09, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, 
Newman Club - Catholic Students Association 
Laura Pollard TO, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship 
Jed Poster ’09, Hillel 

Emily Putnam TO, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship 
Came Rampp, Library and Information Services, 
Middlebury United Methodist Church 
Jeff Rehbach, Library and Information Services, 

Memorial Baptist Church 

Richard Romagnoli, Theater Department, Congregational 
Church of Middlebury 

Jaye Roseborough, Director, Career Services Office, 
Champlain Valley Unitarian Universalist Society 
Tiffany Sargent ’79, Alliance for Civic Engagement, 
Middlebury United Methodist Church 
Linda Schiffer, Cook Commons, Havurah 
Ira Schiffer, Associate Chaplain and Advisor to Hillel, 
Havurah 

Ben Schiffer TO,Hillel .. 

Robert Sctiine, Religion Department, Head Of Brainerd 
Commons, Uavurafi 

Manta Schine, Co-Head of Brainerd Commons, Havurah 
Alexandra Schloss ’09, Hillel 
David Schoenholtz ’07, Hillel 
Heidi Schuerger, Library &nd Information Services, 
Middlebury United Methodist Church 
Kathryn Schwind ’08, Prayz 

Pavlos Sfyroeras, Classics Department, Advisor to the 
Christian Orthodox Association, 

Allison Shaffer TO, InterVarsity Chnstian Fellowship, 

Prayz 

Azaria Shaw ’08, InterVarsity Chnstian Fellowship 
Kate Silbert ’08, InterVarsity Chnstian Fellowship 
Sage Sipchen ’09, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship 
Victona Sisson ’08, Prayz 

Katherine Sparkes ’09, Memorial Baptist Church 
Rebecca Steinberg ’08.5, Hillel 
Luke Strauss ’07, UUM- Unitarian Universalists of 
Middlebury 

Donald Stuart ’08, InterVarsity Chnstian Fellowship 
Andrea Suozzo ’09, UUM- Unitarian Universalists of 
Middlebury 

Michael Tierney ’09, Newman Club - Catholic Students 
Association 

Stephanie Toriumi ’09, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship 
Sarah Tucker ’09, Hillel 

Eric Vos ’05, Ross Commons CRA, InterVarsity Christian 
Fellowship 

Cynthia Watters, Library and Information Services, 

St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church 
Anelle Weisman ’07, Hillel 
Dana Weissman ’07, Hillel 

Alec Weltzien ’09, InterVarsity Chnstian Fellowship 
Ben Wiechman ’07, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship 
Jennifer Williams ’08, UUM- Unitarian Universalists of 
Middlebury 

Sarah Wilson ’08, UUM- Unitarian Universalists of 
Middlebury 

Michael Winter ’08, Hillel 

Karlye Wisdom ’09, InterVarsity Chnstian Fellowship 
Rich Wolfson, Physics Department, Champlain Valley 
Unitarian Universalist Society 
Dina Wolkoff ’88, College Advancement, Hillel/ Havurah 
O. Larry Yarbrough, Religion Department, 

St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church 
Alexander Yule ’08.5, Hillel 

Robby Zeller ’08, Prayz, Small-Group Bible Studies 
Jamie Zug ’08, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship 
Muchadei Zvoma ’07, InterVarsity Chrisnan Fellowship 











25 April 2007 


opi nion s 

■ The Middlebury Campus 


10 


(Hfye jlUfrMeburo (Eampus 


editor in chief 

managing editor 

business manager 

Benjamin Salkowe 

Lisie Mehlman 

Sienna Chambers 

associate editors 

opinions editors 

sports editors 

Zamir Ahmed 

Jay Dolan 

Brooke Farquhar 

Polly Johnson 

Jack Lysohir 

Simon Keyes 

Sonja Pedersen-Green 

features editors 

Jeff Patterson 

news editors 

Aylie Baker 

photo editors 

Tom Brant 

Joe Bergan 

Chris Heinrich 

Brian Fung 

Mia Lieb-Lappen (Asst.) 

Mike Murali (Asst.) 

Ilhan Kim 

Leslie Lim (Asst.) 

local news editors 

layout editor 

Andrea Glaessner 

Laura Kuhl 

arts editors 

Tamara Hilmes 


Melissa Marshall 

Kelly Janis 

online editor 

Kelsey Smith 
Andrew Throdahl (Asst.) 

Thomas Brush 


editorials 

The staff editorial represents the official opinion 
of The Middlebury Campus as decided by the Editorial 
Board and drafted by the Opinions Editors. 

Nardini for SGA President 

Either the job of Student Government Association (SGA) Presi¬ 
dent is terribly undesirable, or lone candidate Max Nardini ’08 just 
breathes fear into the eyes of any prospective competitors. We cannot 
explain the lack of interest in this year’s SGA Presidential campaign, 
but we have a good feeling that Nardini will be moving into the “oval” 
office on second floor McCullough next year. 

Nardini’s platform is built on classic student government planks 
like vacation bussing and raising student interest in the SGA, as 
well as more inspired goals such as making Xanadu a fixture in the 
Middlebury night life and lobbying for the College’s transition to car¬ 
bon neutrality. The current Wonnacott senator has proven himself as 
an experienced SGA politician, a smooth candy-wielding campaigner 
and a tested student leader. But in his campaign he has also demon¬ 
strated a nuanced appreciation for the challenges his agenda would 
face, and the necessity of fostering a strong and interactive relation¬ 
ship with the College President’s staff. 

We are disappointed that there is no real race for the SGA presi¬ 
dency, and the student apathy this election has exposed is worrisome. 
Are we too busy? Too stressed? Too polite? 

These are questions we hope SGA President Max Nardini will 
work to answer. We endorse his campaign and look forward to his 
presidency. 

Atyia for Student Co-Chair 

Dean Atyia ’08.5 is the undeniable maverick in the Student 
Co-Chair of Community Council competition. The Junior Feb has 
campaigned on an imaginative platform with little regard for the 
traditionally defined limitations of Community Council. 

Large and unlikely-to-happen student favorites top Atyia’s list 
of proposals, including the re-introduction of a College debit card 
system for laundry and purchases from campus venders. The cen¬ 
terpiece of Atyia’s campaign is a two day concert series to be held on 
Battell Beach or other inclusive venue. His utopian vision of acts both 
enjoyed by all and agreeable to the divergent tastes of MCAB and 
WRMC may be far fetched, but it is creative and original. 

More likely to succeed is an effort to accelerate the introduction 
of all-campus wireless internet. In his two-year stint as a representa¬ 
tive on the Community Council, Dean has continually advocated 
for the installation of a wireless network. He demonstrates a strong 
grasp of the issue and understands the obstacles at hand, making us 
confident the initiative could be implemented fully. 

Most reassuring to us, however, is Atyia’s pledge to challenge the 
closed-door executive sessions through which Community Council 
has sometimes hidden important recommendations to President of 
the College Ronald D. Liebowitz. Many students have little sense of 
what the Council does, and a renewed commitment to making its 
work public and accessible is refreshing. 

Soft spoken and well-liked by much of the student body, Eric 
Hoest will prove a formidable opponent to Atyia. But while Hoest 
is a strong candidate, his lack of direct experience with the Council 
is a weakness in running to lead an organization with a busy and 
complicated agenda. 

We endorse Dean Atyia for Student Co-Chair of Community 
Council, and we look forward to those tiki torches on Battell Beach. 

contact the campus 

To contact The Middlebury Campus Publications 
with story tips or content suggestions, e-mail: 

campus@middlebur y. edu 

or find us on the web at: 

www.middleburycampus.com 



Who toes fiiii the MOST at Middlebury? 


the Ross howophobartist the Music-Nazi-lady at the pool the Vermont Liquor Inspector 

only likes the color pink can't swim with any music (artist's rendition) 

on polo shirts playing in the morning 


Se/d \joUt VdteS (d/d \jocir oton df'dtm/XjS of un-fur\ people!) to Sd/yflIt!etQ/yiiddlebutyedu 0 /d nyyhe usn 0pfrZe. 


Taylor Long and Sam Dakota Miller 


letters to the editor 


To the Editor: 

I was a little confused by the administration’s re¬ 
sponse to the recent homophobic incidents on cam¬ 
pus, and whether the response was directed at the 
hate crime itself, the opinion of the perpetrator or 
both. I wholeheartedly agree with the school’s policy 
and state law that hate crimes of any sort will not 
be tolerated. However, what about the opinion of the 
perpetrator that motivated this egregious act? While 
I disagree enitirely with the perpetrator’s sentiment, 
I believe he or she should be able to express an opin¬ 
ion to those willing to listen. If the perpetrator and 
others with similar viewpoints had an avenue to ex¬ 
press themselves, I for one would listen. To be hon¬ 
est, I am intrigued by such ignorant, hateful opinions 
and where they come from. Furthermore, when we 
say someone is not entitled to his or her opinion, we 
get more destructive, disturbing forms of expression 
that we all have to deal with. I would prefer to have 
a conversation with the perpetrator and use this as 
an opportunity to convey my own beliefs. I might be 
successful in persuading the person to become more 
accepting and open-minded, I might not. But at least 
I could try. 

Sincerely, 
Eric Harvey ’09 
Portland, Ore. 

To the Editor: 

Today’s Campus contains an ad sponsored by 
the student Religious Life Council and other College 
community members who participate in a variety 
of religious groups, organizations and churches. We 
hope you will read it. 

The ad states in no uncertain terms that we re¬ 


ject the use of hate language, and “particularly hate 
language that invokes the name of God, against any 
group on our campus.” 

The statement might have said more or less. 
Some who signed it wanted a stronger statement. 
Some wanted less talk about theism. What emerged 
was a consensus document that makes an important 
point: faithful people do not promote hate, and do 
not vandalize, and do not use God’s name to intimi¬ 
date people who are different. Cowards and imma¬ 
ture children do that sort of thing. 

The list of people who signed the statement is 
by no means comprehensive - many other people 
may have wanted to sign the statement, if only they 
had known about it. However, because we wanted to 
respond to this intolerable behavior quickly we sac¬ 
rificed comprehensiveness for speed - thus the list is 
a relatively random subset of community members. 
If you also find such hate language intolerable, we 
hope you will let others know. The more open we 
are about our reaction to such behavior, the sooner 
it will stop. 

If you have been attacked by hate language on 
campus, please know that the religious community 
stands with you. And we will work with you to help 
stop such attacks. 

Sincerely, 
Laurel Macaulay Jordan, 
Chaplain of the College 

Ira J. Schiffer, 
Associate Chaplain/ Rabbi 

Augustus E. Jordan, 
Director of the Scott Center 
for Spiritual and Religious Life 


campus policies and information 

The Opinions pages of The Middlebury Campus provide a forum for constructive and respectful dialogue on substantive issues. With 
this in mind, The Campus reserves the right to deny publication of all or part of a submission for any reason. This includes, but is 
not limited to: the making of assertions based on hearsay; the relation of private conversations; the libelous mention of unverifiable 
events; the use of vulgar language or personal attacks. Any segment of a submitted article that contains any of the aforementioned 
will be removed before publication. Contributors will be allowed to reference prior articles published in the Opinions section or 
announcements for the public record. If a reference is made to prior articles, the submission will be considered a letter to the editor. 
The Campus will not accept or print anonymous letters. The opinions expressed by contributors to the Opinions section, as well as 
reviews, columns, editorial comics and other commentary, are views of the individual contributors and do not necessarily reflect the 
opinions of the newspaper. The Campus welcomes letters to the editor at 250 words or less, or opinions submissions at 800 words 
or less. Submit works directly to the Opinions Editor, Drawer 30, campus@middlebury.edu or via the paper’s website at www. 
middleburycampus.com. To be considered for publications, submissions must be received by 5 p.m. Monday. The Campus reserves 
the right to edit all submissions. 

The Middlebury Campus (USPS 556-060), the student newspaper of Middlebury College, is published by The Middlebury Cam¬ 
pus Publications. Publication is every Wednesday of the academic year, except during offical college vacation periods and final 
examinations. Editorial and business offices are located in Hepburn Hall Annex, Middlebury College. The Middlebury Campus is 
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deadline for all display and classified advertising is 5 p.m. Friday for the following week’s issue. Mailing address: The Middlebury 
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Please address distribution concerns to the Business Director. First class postage paid at Middlebury, Vt., 05753. 


































campusopinions 


25 April 2007 


11 


notes from the desk: Jay Dolan 

The new Friday night-lights 


44 


Two weekends ago I made a last minute decision to 
attend Xanadu, the new on-campus night club. Having 
heard about its successful opening the previous Friday, I 
thought that it would most likely be packed full of stu¬ 
dents looking to have a great time. When I arrived un- 
fashionably early, I was met with an expectedly empty 
dance floor and a few bored bouncers standing behind 
the bar. 

I was told the event was not publicized by the group 
sponsoring the party. Apparently they even forgot to 
send an email to their own members. For this reason, the 
scene had a slow start. Being that I am pretty lame and 
do not have much else to do on a Friday night, I decided 
to stick around and see if the place took off. It was, after 
all, still early and I had already paid my one dollar cover 
charge. Also, I couldn’t justify leaving when there were 
two dollar 16 oz Labatt Blues at the bar. So there I stayed, 
holding up the wall like there was no tomorrow. 

The party did improve as the night went on. Not 
dramatically, but the increase of people that flowed in led 
me to the following realization: Xanadu is a great place. 
I compared it to every other on-campus party I had 
ever been to. These parties mosdy included a cramped 
dormitory room with a sadly constructed iPod-speaker 
sound system, precariously balanced on the window sill 
of a 5-by-5 common room. 

On-campus night-life aside, the off-campus parties 
facilitate a completely different scene, which I’ll admit 
is incredibly entertaining. Bravo, off-campus parties. Of 
course, to my dismay, last weekend’s attempt to repeat 
the fantastic times at Rites of Spring was shut-down. Af¬ 
ter abandoning the possibility, and rarity, of two great 
Saturdays in a row, last weekend I decided to once again 
fall back on the newly constructed Xanadu. Like the 
week before, I was met with reasonably priced beer (two 
for one dollar!) and a further lack of student support. 
Since then, I’ve heard people say things like, “Xanadu 
sucks.” These people are wrong and I think they are the 
ones who actually “suck.” 

Still, I have one or two suggestions for the club. I 
firmly believe that the music at Xanadu should be lim¬ 


ited or almost exclusively done by DJs. Live bands are 
great, but many of them already have decent venues to 
wow students with their talent. I’m talking about the 
Grille, Pearsons, Coltrane and even the Gamut room. If 
you want Xanadu to be successful, it should remain a 
club, not a concert hall. Also, I would like to see the club 
head in a direction which avoids charging ridiculous fees 
at the door. Last Friday, they were charging 12 dollars to 
get in. 

Despite these problems, I think Xanadu clearly has 
more positive qualities than negative ones. For example, 
whenever I go, I can move around, as opposed to the ab¬ 
surdly packed Angela’s where you can expect to wait 30- 
45 minutes to get a beer. That’s assuming you can even 
get in. The amount of kids that show up to Angela’s on 
a Thursday night make it look like the greatest place on 
earth. I’m sorry. It’s not. 

After experiencing several areas of social night-life 
at Middlebury, I can say I am genuinely happy that stu¬ 
dents took the initiative to set up Xanadu. To me, it feels 
like an alternative pub-night. I love it. You’re probably 
thinking that the cheap Labatts were making me emo¬ 
tional, but despite my slight build, I don’t think the two 
beers I was nursing impaired my judgment. 

What is the point of supporting Xanadu? The point 
is that if this club fails, I can see no way in blaming 
the school for a terrible social life. I’ve been known to 
complain about Middlebury. I tend to agree with many 
people who believe the social scene here is a joke, but 
Xanadu has a lot of potential. If students do not take 
advantage of it, then it says something about the student 
body and not the school itself. There are people working 
incredibly hard to start this thing, and I think the place 
is great. The music is fun, the bar prices are right and the 
atmosphere is not bad. Furthermore, if it ends up being 
successful, I wouldn’t be surprised if Middlebury were to 
fork over a hefty sum of money to completely renovate 
the space. The only way this idea could fail is if the stu¬ 
dent body fails to take advantage of what it has to offer. 

Jay Dolan '08 is an Opinions editor 
who hails from Richmond y Va. 


op-ed David Murphy Haglund 

Tuition, a necessary extravagance? 


I am absolutely sick of hearing 
College officials justify exorbitant 
tuition hikes with the argument that 
“[tuition] covers just 63 percent of 
the actual cost of an education at 
Middlebury.” I find the figure hard 
to believe prima facie , but since I 
don’t have access to the statistics, I 
will leave that point aside. My point 
here is that much of the spending 
that goes on is absolutely unneces¬ 
sary and should be halted. 

I believe a primary reason costs 
at Middlebury are spiraling out 
of control is that the College as a 
whole, and especially the depart¬ 
ments and subgroups which com¬ 
prise it, expects tuition to continu¬ 
ally go up. Thus, every year groups 
under the college umbrella raise 
their own spending budgets. There 
are dozens, if not hundreds, of ath¬ 
letic teams, artistic productions, 
Commons and academic depart¬ 
ments that receive money from the 
mandatory student fees to spend. 
The total spent for strictly non- 
academic endeavors alone must be 
staggering. 

An analogy could be made 
to the spending habits of the U.S. 
Federal Government. Similar to the 
component parts of that institu¬ 
tion, at Middlebury each individual 


subgroup has an incentive to spend 
100 perccent of its budget ever year, 
so that it can request even more the 
next year rather than face a cut. 

I can attest from my days at 
Midd that we lived in the lap of lux¬ 
ury. Preposterous conditions. Free 
beer on Thursdays, $6,000+ parties 
hosted by Commons on a quasi¬ 
weekly basis, Commons’ offices 
purchasing hundreds 
of DVDs at a 
time ... I could 
go on, but I 
think many 
students realize 
just how much 
money is spent 
from manda¬ 
tory student fees. 

But how much of 
this is necessary? 

I think it 
would be easy to 
make drastic savings without com¬ 
promising the quality of the educa¬ 
tion or even living standards. The 
college could easily set up an audi¬ 
tor post to supervise how money is 
being spent by sub-college entities, 
and then report on it. I am confi¬ 
dent that such a report would reveal 
absolutely shocking figures of sheer 
waste, and with any luck prompt a 



heardoncampus 


The schools with which we most 
compete now for students are better 
endowed on a student-by-student basis. 

— President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz 
commenting on the 2007-2008 comprehensive 

fee last week 


•> 


more matter: Matty Van Meter 
Judgement day not today 


tightening of the purses that would 
benefit all students. Each group’s 
leadership would raise a fuss, but 
the average student — and pro¬ 
spective student — 1 would be given 
some real relief. Education stan¬ 
dards need not suffer. Living stan¬ 
dards need not suffer. We could 
easily make savings by eliminating 
t h e absurdity of what is es¬ 

sentially free money 
for college-funded 
organizations. 

Given that 
inflation has been 
running at about 
two percent for 
the last ten years, 
while tuition at 
elite institutions 
is rising at least 
five percent pro an¬ 
num, it seems obvi¬ 
ous to me that elite 
colleges like Middlebury will soon 
price themselves out of range for 
many families. Even given increased 
need-based aid, the simple “sticker- 
shock” of seeing a $50,000+ price 
would be sure to discourage many 
qualified applicants. This would be 
tragic. 

David Haglund is a 2006 gradu¬ 
ate writing from Vienna , Austria. 


In the hateful graffiti that has 
appeared in our hallways and the 
heated response to it, there is re¬ 
vealed a deep and unfortunate ten¬ 
dency for pigeonholing on the part 
of all involved. To those targeted by 
the graffiti and to those who were 
not targeted but still felt worried 
or simply embarassed, this is all 
too apparent. It is striking that for 
all our progress in social educa¬ 
tion, informed by the unspeakable 
tragedies of the twentieth century, 
we have not all learned that the 
first step towards systematic dis¬ 
crimination is labeling our world 
in as excessively rigid and simplis¬ 
tic manner, losing the subtlety of 
perception which we have attained 
— plain and simple, pigeonholing. 

Learning that pointedly offen¬ 
sive and bigoted writing had been 
found in Ross Commons, I suspect 
that most students were caught 
unaware. This had not occurred so 
visibly in the memories of current 
students, and it served as a kind of 
tipping point, both for those prone 
to actually commit these acts and 
for that part of the campus com¬ 
munity which abhors this parody 
of self-expression. It has proven 
unfortunate on both counts, de¬ 
spite everyone’s best efforts. 

There is always the risk, when 
an event is highly publicized, that 
it will inspire copycat incidents. 
The classic example is school 
shootings, which sadly proves to 
be timely in the present moment. 
School shootings happened before 
the Columbine incident, but there 
emerged a particular pattern 
afterwards, with the perpetra¬ 
tors emulating or even citing (as 
in the most recent case) the two 
Colorado students, which is strik¬ 
ing. Similarly, the graffiti during 
spring break caused a tremendous 
amount of discussion, not all of it 
good. Because of the visibility and 
coverage of the bigoted remarks, 
and the comments by some ardent, 
though misguided free-speech 
activists, those students prone to 
commit such acts of verbal abuse 
suddenly had a forum in which 
to do it. The recent marring of a 
whiteboard would never have been 
reported or debated in such depth 
had the prior, larger incident not 
happened. The students who wrote 



the graffiti achieved their aim: they 
were heard by everybody. 

In quick response to the first 
event, the administration held a 
town meeting, MOQA mobilized 
and posters of all sizes, colors and 
descriptions appeared in high-vis¬ 
ibility places across campus. For all 
their fervor, however, the outrage 
of homophobia’s most outspoken 
critics on campus had all the effect 
of most reactionary polemical 
rhetoric, that is, no effect at all. 

The town meeting turned predict¬ 
ably into a meeting of like minds, 
some blaming the “conservatives” 
on campus, or athletes. Let me 
draw attention to the fact that, 
beyond being grossly broad and 
unsubtle assertions, these actions 
step dangerously close to the line 
of pigeonholing, and taking that 
first step into another kind of 
bigotry. 

Blaming broadly defined 
groups for these events divides our 
community, alienates potential 
allies in those groups, deepens the 
problem and obscures the fact that 
these fatuous acts were commit¬ 
ted not by conservatives, liberals, 
athletes, artists, prep-school elites 
or by any other stereotype. They 
were committed by individu¬ 
als; individuals who made a very 
deeply stupid choice. It is easy to 
blame an impersonal group, and 
easier still when the stereotype of 
that group fits the act. This avoids 
the necessity of looking around 
and seeing the actual people. But 
we are taught here, I hope, to put 
our judgment on hold, and to be¬ 
gin to see and change the specific 
and individual choices and beliefs 
which go into such invidious state¬ 
ments as were written in the past 
few weeks. That is the only way to 
move forward. 


the web poll 


wm 

WkSms § 


Why is there a paucity of student government candidates? 




The paucity is just a 
fluke this year. 

18% 


Students don’t care 
9% about the SGA 


“1’m not surprised, everyone is 
so busy either with schoolwork 
or self-medicating with drugs 
and alcohol.” 

— DANIEL WATSON JONES ’07 


“Right before finals time 
people are too stressed 
out to take on more 
responsibilities.” 

— KYL1E MARKS ’07 


“People think that the SGA 
as a whole will not make a 
difference.” 



73% 

Students have lost faith in the ability of the 
organization to make changes. 

Results taken from poll at www.middleburycampus.com 

Next week’s web poll: Are you satisfied with Guster as this year’s MCAB Spring concert? 


- JAMES SCHONZEIT ’10 

















25 April 2007 


_ campn opinions 

op-ed: Mary Lane 

Virginia Tech tragedy lost on Middkids 


I am a Virginian first and an Ameri¬ 
can second — anyone with even a cursory 
knowledge of who I am knows that this is 
true. I have a Virginia flag in my room and 
Virginia bumper stickers on my binder and 
coffee mug. My family has been involved 
with Virginia Tech for decades. We are in¬ 
tense Hokie fans who wear the Jerseys and 
shout for the Fighting Gobblers. Nearly ev¬ 
eryone who is born in Virginia, especially 
the central and southern parts of the ( 
commonwealth, is a Hokie or Cava¬ 
lier. Virginia is an area of the United 
States rich with history, rivalries, hon¬ 
or, respect, God and country. Virginia 
is both American and Southern, and no 
poor attempts I make at articulation 
could ever hope to explain the com 
plexities of Southern and Virginian 
culture. ( 

It is through these cultural 
lenses that I saw Cho Seung-hui’s 
massacre of 32 members of the Virgina Tech 


community on April 16, 2007. Thirty-two 
people. That is roughly the equivalent of 
first floor Battell North. All dead. The nook 
of the country I considered safe and stable 
had been invaded. 

I have a very large 
number of friends who 
attend Virginia Tech. 
When my mother in¬ 
formed me of the 
tragedy, I spent much 
of the day calling, 
texting and Face- 
book-ing friends 
from home to see 
if they were safe. Thank¬ 
fully, they were all ok. 
One friend from high 
school was enrolled in 
the German engineer¬ 
ing class from which 
few escaped alive. He 
woke up Monday morn¬ 



ing, firmly decided against crawling out of 
his bed for such an early class, contentedly 
went back to sleep and unknowingly saved 
his own life. 

It has been hard dealing with this trag¬ 
edy at a school like Middlebury where so few 
people are from the South and even fewer 
are Virginians. While I would like to believe 
that, as members of the College community 
have stated, everyone on campus sympa¬ 
thizes with the victims as “members of the 
human family,” I know that this is sadly not 
true. There are those who have made it frus¬ 
trating, have declared to me their opinions 
that this is indicative of America and how 
“screwed up” she is, instead of focusing on 
the killer himself or the tragic nature of the 
massacre. 

Very few students seem to have been 
significantly upset by this heinous act. They 
have too much work, too little sleep and 
too many distractions. It makes me sad and 
worried to recall how, after the Columbine 


shootings, teachers and students were all 
abuzz with the news and worried for their 
peers in Colorado. 

From what I have heard from others and 
from my own classes, very few professors 
have even mentioned the incident in class. 
I had a presentation due the day after the 
tragedy, and I felt sure that when I explained 
my situation to my professor, she would let 
me present the following day. However, she 
merely told me I could present after all the 
other students, giving me only a few frantic 
extra minutes to prepare. 

That being said, I have been incredibly 
thankful for the supportive friends, includ¬ 
ing my commons residential advisor and 
Commons dean, who have helped me come 
to terms with the havoc that has shattered 
my peaceful home community. 

I love the Hokies. I love my Common¬ 
wealth. Sic semper tyrannis. 

Mary Lane is a first-year 
who hails from Lynchburg Va. 


op-ed: Daniel Roberts 

The Iman gave us something to talk about 


I don’t like Don Imus very much. I see his appeal for some 
people (like my Dad) but I wouldn’t say I’m a fan. And no, I’m 
not just saying that to avoid being crucified by Imus haters 
here on campus, though I am sure that will happen anyway. 

Anyway, regardless of my personal opinion of Imus, the 
cancellation of his show was the wrong move. Careful, stay 
seated. Don’t get heated yet. Yes, Imus made a mistake — a 
foolish one. Okay, it was utterly moronic. He slipped up in a 
very real way. Yet Imus is a shock-jock. He is a classier, slightly 
more likeable Howard Stern, with a guest-list composed of re¬ 
spected politicians, rather than strippers. So Imus called the 
Rutgers women “nappy-headed hos.” Yup, he said it. Awful, I 
know. Still, his fiasco led to a game of “shun the bigot,” where 
his employers should have taken pause and seen the enormous 
opportunity that his words could have fostered. 

Now that he has been fired from his post of nearly thirty 
years on the air, he will probably be relegated to XM satellite 
radio. Once he gets there, he will still be a more legitimate pun¬ 
dit than Howard Stern, who was similarly banished to the likes 
of XM radio, but that’s because Stern’s show involves farting 
contests. Still, being on XM will establish Imus’ show as even 


more of a joke, and he will be largely ignored. 

This lets Imus off too easy — he and every other recent 
villain of offensive utterances. Think about Mel Gibson. He 
let slip his belief that the Jews are “responsible for every war in 
the world.” Guess what? He’s still making movies. Unfortunate, 
yes, but why give Imus such a lethal injection of public slander 
when his comments were lighthearted in comparison? Is it be¬ 
cause Gibson was drunk or because Imus is already a contro¬ 
versial figure, so people were waiting to have a good reason to 
hate him? It’s probably just that Mel Gibson is handsome and 
Don Imus looks like an old wrinkled leather wallet. 

Regardless, back to my real point: with the increasing 
growth of political correctness, people are far too eager to toss 
someone in the stocks for one poor decision, and this only lets 
the person off the hook. The anti-semitic comments of Gib¬ 
son, the homophobic rant of Isaiah Washington and the racist 
comments of Michael Richards and now Imus, have all come 
and gone — wasted opportunities to discuss very important 
issues. 

The same opportunity was wasted with the comments 
of presidential hopeful Joe Biden, the Delaware senator. His 


statement about Barack Obama being the first “clean-cut, fresh 
Black candidate” was taken to be racist and offended many 
people, despite his innocent intentions. Biden insisted he only 
meant that Obama is innovative, interesting and sophisticated. 
Still, the outrage generated from his comments represented a 
very real tension between certain races and classes. This could 
have fostered interesting discussions, but nope. Instead, Biden 
was simply made out to be a villain and his hopes at the presi¬ 
dency were dashed to the concrete. 

I don’t see how anyone benefits from the mass demoniza- 
tion of Imus, including the “wounded” Rutgers athletes. Justice 
was not served. 

Leaving Imus on the air could have led to an ongoing 
discussion about race that our culture desperately needs right 
now. Instead, firing him simply closed the lid on this incident 
and set a standard that any comment or joke that is slightly of¬ 
fensive to any minority group will not be tolerated. 

If anything, the rush to silence him shows cowardice, 
rather than a brave willingness to debate the topic further. 

Daniel Roberts is a sophomore 
who hails from Newton , Mass. 


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IS CURRENTLY ACCEPTING 
APPLICATIONS FOR THE FOLLOWING 
POSITIONS FOR THE 
FALL 2007 SEMESTER 


ASSOCIATE EDITOR: ASSISTS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF AND MANAG¬ 
ING EDITOR IN ALL ASPECTS OF NEWSPAPER PRODUCTION. 
WORKS CLOSELY WITH SECTION EDITORS. COPY-EDITING 
AND LAYOUT SKILLS A MUST. 


NEWS EDITOR: RESPONSIBLE FOR CONCEIVING, ASSIGNING 
AND EDITING NEWS STORIES. ALSO RESPONSIBLE FOR LAY¬ 
OUT OF SECTION. MUST BE AWARE OF CAMPUS NEWS AND 
HAVE A MIND FOR CREATIVE JOURNALISM. 

LOCAL NEWS EDITOR: RESPONSIBLE FOR CONCEIVING, AS¬ 
SIGNING AND EDITING LOCAL NEWS STORIES. ALSO RESPON¬ 
SIBLE FOR LAYOUT OF SECTION. MUST BE INTERESTED IN 
TOWN AND STATE POLITICS AND COMMUNITY EVENTS AND 
HAVE A MIND FOR CREATIVE JOURNALISM. 

OPINIONS EDITOR: RESPONSIBLE FOR LEADING EDITORIAL 
DEBATE, DRAFTING WEEKLY STAFF EDITORIAL AND EDITING 
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AS OPPOSED TO THE SECTION SHAPING THE EDITOR. ALSO 
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25 April 2007 



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25 April 2007 


features 

The Middlebury Campus 



. ,-r rt 


YEAR Journeyr 
hiinist permam 


ide re 


Help Wanted 

Get $$$ while you do homework! 

Almost every studen ^affriend7aboutwho has the 

- uirement for a paper 

the most lab hours , imited spending money, using 

Most students also have of the i ast remaining 

the little cash their parents send t Ligh t that were 

tit™ —-1-e„ has .he« 

on sale. Besides, with alIt ^ earn some money, 

to get an on-campus ,ob whe y what if you had a 

Bn. wha. if y* .eocene^ you (oI to „ g y «„, 

“ d "'"""'"t find .he bes. job for Wi-S 

rbete S3£»*• «< °«°“ k 

pUs and Tex, b y JosephBer^Feanne " 


The best campus jobs for 
homework production 


Field House 
Monitor 


If you have ever been to the climbing wall, Nelson 
Field House or Pepin gym, you’ve probably seen “the 
desk” As soon as you walk into The Field House, you come 
across the monitor’s desk sitting peacefully, a phone rest¬ 
ing on its humble shelf. 

Maybe you’ve even been lucky to have seen someone 
working there, sitting at the desk, usually watching a mov¬ 
ie on a computer or reading a book. 

This person did not get permanently “sexiled” out of 
his double in Gifford; actually, he is on the job. 

“My responsibilities are to stay at the desk, and there 
are a lot of people that come in and they are curious and 
they want someone to be there to say ‘hi,’” said Mickey 
Gilchrist ’08 about his main responsibilities as a Field 
House Monitor, the official title for the person who sits at 
the desk all day. 

“The other main responsibility is the first aid and 
safety for my section of the building,” says Gilchrist. The 
first aid requirement is more the role of a guide and moni¬ 
tor rather than paramedic. He is first aid certified, but it is 
not a necessary requirement for the job. 

But what about the phone? 

“Some people call looking for a coach’s number,” says 
Gilchrist “I have a list right here with all the coaches exten¬ 



sions,” he adds. For anyone interested, the number for the desk is 1324. 

The Field House Monitor, a title gained through simple attendance of an in¬ 
troductory meeting at the beginning of the year, is the “Holy Grail” of on-campus 
jobs where homework can be done. 

See more of the best and worst campus jobs on p. 16 




ir~" 


sex sage 

Get it while the weather’s hot, 
page 18 



“Chalex” runs the show 

A look at the close relationship between two 
friends who organized Relay for Life, 
page 17 


newton’s laws 

Is the Vista mundane? 

page 17 






















25 April 2007 


campusfeatiires 


Klare foresees African oil fueling global clashes 



Chris Bohorquez 


Rousing the audience at RAJ ’59 House, Michael Klare raises connections between Africa, oil 
and global politics. 


By Annabelle Fowler 
Staff Writer 

Consider, for a moment, farmers in Ni¬ 
geria who live off the land to support their 
families. If oil is found underneath their 
property, they can look forward to nothing 
but devastation. In no time, a foreign oil com¬ 
pany will show up, begin digging holes and 
start extracting oil from the soil. The land will 
be destroyed, the water will be poisoned and 
the chances of compensation will be zero. 

Insisted Michael Klare, a Five College’s 
Professor of Peace and World Security Stud¬ 
ies in his lecture last Tuesday, his is the situa¬ 
tion not only in Nigeria, but in many parts of 
Africa. It is oil, according to Klare, that spells 
impending disaster for African nations and 
the world. 

Michael Klare was the keynote speaker 
for this past week’s African Symposium, 
“Gems and Guns.” Speaking without a for¬ 
mulated agenda, Klare addressed a packed 
Robert A. Jones ’59 House with a fiery spon¬ 
taneity and provided pointed insights into 
the resource conflict in Africa, with a particu¬ 
lar emphasis on oil. 

In Africa’s past, Klare explained, colo¬ 
nialism equaled plunder. Established govern¬ 
ments were systematically smashed, and their 
political and social structures left disheveled. 
Colonialists used divide-and-conquer tac¬ 
tics to manipulate the local populations and 
then drew boundaries to suit European con¬ 
venience without any regard for ethnic reali¬ 
ties. This laid the ground for the weak, cor¬ 
rupt governments that exist in Africa today. 
Today’s separatism is deeply rooted in past 
colonialism, as well as religious violence, 
anti-Western ideas and hatred. These prob¬ 
lems, Klare insists, only become intensified 
when oil is added to the equation. 

In the Anglo-Saxon world, individuals 
can own assets which are under the ground. 
In Africa, on the other hand, the state owns 
and controls all subterranean assets and 
therefore all the oil. Thus, explained Klare, 


only the heads of state collect the rents and 
the income is rarely redistributed equally or 
fairly. 

“Two hundred and fifty miles away from 
Darfur, people are driving brand new Mer¬ 
cedes and going to discos where they buy 
drinks at New York City prices... 250 miles 
from Darfur,” said Klare. 

The oil in Africa can easily become a 
source of friction in the global struggle for 
energy. “Just as Africa is becoming the most 
important source of oil for the USA, Africa is 
[also] becoming the most important source of 
oil for China,” said Klare. Africa’s appeal lies 
in the fact that it is at an earlier stage of devel¬ 
opment of oil extraction than other countries. 
And when it comes to oil production. Africa 
is on an exponential curve while the rest of 
the world is on the decline. Whereas petro¬ 
leum companies already own most of the oil 
sites in other parts of the world, in Africa the 
situation is different. “[It] is virtually the only 
place left in the world that is willing to bring 
in foreign partners,” Klare explained. 

As the U.S. and China look to exploit Af¬ 
rica’s resources, Klare sees only conflict on the 
horizon. He envisions a China-United States 
clash occurring in Africa, and warns that if 
both nations engage in competition, the out¬ 
come could well be World War III or another 
Cold War, complete with proxy battles and 
bipolarity. 

While his outlook is bleak, Klare pin¬ 
pointed some potential solutions to resource 
exploitation in Africa. “We must recognize 
that the U.S. needs to be a leader in the search 
for alternative energies and exercise a profes¬ 
sional, non-intrusive decorum when it comes 
to Africa,” he explained. This could come 
about through a tax on gas that would subsi¬ 
dize alternative energy research and a height¬ 
ened consciousness of such issues. 

Like Klare, Toral Patel ’09, an organizer 
of the symposium, is also aware that “a small 
symposium cannot possibly produce solu¬ 
tions for such deeply-rooted problems. But 


by simply creating discourse, the issues are 
brought to people’s attention which is impor¬ 
tant in and of itself.” 

Wendy Rodriguez TO agrees. “The sym¬ 
posium is a very good idea because it brings 
awareness to issues that are not always very 
evident in the media today,” she said. 

Indeed, Patel said that one of the main 
goals of the symposium was to bring the is¬ 
sues into the campus consciousness by spark¬ 
ing dialogue about issues within Africa and 
elsewhere. “We felt that it was important to 
understand how [resources] have contrib¬ 
uted to or hindered the region’s development 
efforts.” 

Ultimately, then, the symposium leads to 
reflection not only on resource wars in Africa 


and problems in the developing world, but 
also on our own lifestyle and oil consump¬ 
tion. If we want to help Africa, we must at¬ 
tack the problem at its root and, as Klare 
made clear, cut down on our consumption 
of oil while we try to find alternative energy 
sources. Otherwise, he warned, while striking 
the podium in front of him, we might as well 
“kiss the planet goodbye.” 

Klare is the author of Blood and Oil: The 
Dangers and Consequences of America’s 
Growing Dependency on Imported Petro¬ 
leum and Resource Wars: The New Landscape 
of Global Conflict. The event was sponsored 
by Dialogues for Peace , International Students 
Organization Ross Commons , and the Depart¬ 
ment of Political Science. 



Music Librarian Natatorium Lifeguard 


Three issues ago, The Campus highlighted the Music 
Library as one of the premiere places on campus to study. 
We return to the library this week as one of the best places 
to have a “chill” student job. Like any job search, the “music 
librarian” position seems to be all about networking. 

“I had friends from chamber singers who worked here my 
freshman year,” says Adam Fazio ’07, a librarian at the Music 
Library who applied for the job at the beginning of this year. 
Openings usually arise at the beginning of the semester. 

The music library is a great place to study because there 
are few visitors. 

“I check in and out CDs,” said Fazio of his daily respon¬ 
sibilities. “I typically open the library a couple days a week.” 

“I can’t think of any jobs that would be better,” he said 
regarding the ability to do some homework on the job. A 
novel and a notebook lie on the circulation desk next to 
him. 

The music library is remote and infrequently visited, 
allowing for a large amount of homework to be done at a 
low cost with minimal work interruptions. It is not only a 


Any community member that has ever visited the pool, 
and anyone that has tried to launch off the high dive knows 
the face of Becca Reingold ’07, a student lifeguard at the na¬ 
tatorium. 

“My job is to maintain the safety of all people in the pool,” 
Reingold explained while keeping a careful eye on swimmers 
doing laps and small children playing in the shallow end. 

This job does not seem to be very good for doing home¬ 
work, as Reingold cannot even devote her undivided attention 
to the interview — she is on duty after all. 

“No, this is not a good job to do homework at, because 
you always have to be watching the pool,” she said, eyeing the 
waters. 

“The one exception is when the pool is empty,” she said, 
although between lap-swimmers in the mornings and chil¬ 
dren in the afternoons, a calm pool is rarely a reality. 

This student job comes with some hefty requirements. 

“You have to be lifeguard certified and CPR trained,” says 
Reingold, and these certifications must be renewed every year 
or every other year. 


Cash, homework and, oh yeah, a job 

continued from p. 15 



Fitness Center Monitor 

As the weather gets warmer and warmer, more and more 
students dust off their running shoes and bring out their old 
high school lacrosse warm ups. You can see them running on 
the paths on the periphery of campus, or flocking to the gym. 

The gym will continue to be a hub of activity over the 
last few weeks of school as students try to melt away the warm 
comfort food of the winter months. 

That means Meghan McGillen’s ’07 job, a Fitness Center 
Monitor, will be increasingly more difficult. 

“My responsibilities are to do general pick-up of the facil¬ 
ity, and also to clean the machines,” said McGillen. McGillen 
cites the job as good for doing homework, as long as the ma¬ 
chine-cleaning duties are fulfilled within a shift. 

The monitor occupies a unique position, as she is neither 
a personal trainer nor a lifeguard. Rather, the position can be 
described as a hybrid between a bouncer and a guide. 

“I monitor the people that come into the gym and make 
sure that they aren’t high school students or people without 
I.Ds,” McGillen said. 

“I can answer questions about using a machine,” McGil¬ 
len continued. “For example, once a woman didn’t know how 
to turn on the elliptical machines so I went and helped her 
with that.” Otherwise, the monitor is only there to monitor, 
not to be a spotter. 

“It’s kind of an ‘at your own risk’ type of thing,” she said. 

Like the Field House Monitor, the Fitness Center Monitor 
is selected at the beginning of every school year at a meeting. 
If you are looking to earn some extra cash while beng able to 
do some homework, the gym monitor is a fine position. Who 
knows, being in the gym all day might be good for you. 










































25 April 2007 


17 


campu; features 

‘ Chalex’ellence at Relay for Life 


_ By H. Kay Merriman _ 

Staff Writer 

It’s 3 a.m. on Saturday morning and the hundreds of walkers who 
swarmed the soccer field Friday afternoon to participate in Middle- 
bury’s annual cancer fundraiser Relay for Life have dwindled to just 
over two dozen to partake in the “Brave Souls” lap. At random, yawn¬ 
ing students receive prizes for their efforts. But there are two brave 
souls who can’t go unrecognized in Relay’s success. 

Meet “Chalex,” the duo who lost far more than a single night of 
sleep in the process of organizing Relay for Life. Alex Braunstein ’09 
and Chandler Koglmeier ’09 were the co-chairs behind this year’s Re¬ 
lay. They affectionately refer to themselves as “Chalex,” and the nick¬ 
name speaks to their ability to work together. All school year, they 
have been overseeing a 60-person Relay for Life Committee of stu¬ 
dents, faculty and community members, holding monthly committee 
meetings and interacting with Relay team captains and participants 
all in anticipation of April 20th. 

“We make sure all the hard work of our committee members gets 
meshed together,” said Koglmeier. This past Friday night, their hard work 
reached fruition as students, professors and community members came 
together to console those who had lost family and friends to cancer, cel¬ 
ebrate with those who had overcome the disease and raise money for fu¬ 
ture cancer research at Middlebury’s fourth annual Relay for Life. 

This year, explained Koglmeier, Relay was the largest student-run 
fundraiser Middlebury has ever experienced. And it is no small feat to 
gain such a large backing on a campus that has so many student activ¬ 
ists competing for student interest in so many different causes. 

This year’s event drew 80 teams and an estimated 1,000 walkers. 
Participants said they are involved with Relay for a myriad of reasons. 
Some participate because they have witnessed the pain that cancer 
can cause. 

“Two of my grandparents have died of cancer and I Figure I’ll 
probably get it some day. So, I want the cure,” said Miranda Tsang 
’09. 

Others who have not been directly effected by cancer participat¬ 
ed in the event to support those who have and to share in the sense 
of community Relay for Life provides. “It’s like a big block party!” 
commented Maria Dickinson ’07. 

But what about those who make Relay happen? Why do they Relay? 

Braunstein commented on the effect of having such a large group 
of people work together. “I couldn’t help smiling a little seeing over 
1,000 people gathered together in the middle of the night, even when 
most of them were crying. Because that’s what Relay does — it brings 
people and community together,” she said. 

In addition to working diligently before the event, Chalex truly 
experienced every minute of it. They spent many a sleepless night en¬ 
suring that the event ran smoothly and reminding themselves to step 
back and take in the power of it all. “I didn’t realize how emotionally 
invested I was until I started walking away at 9 a.m Saturday morning, 
having been on that field and awake for more than 26 hours straight, 
and felt physically unable to just leave it behind,” said Braunstein. 

So, why does Chalex Relay? 

“I Relay because as I get older, most of the people I know will 


At 17, Ben Lapan is interested in film. He’s popular with the ladies and 
he plays the drums in the high school band. But for his slightly smaller stat¬ 
ure, Lapan seems like any other 17-year-old. Except for one subde differ¬ 
ence — Lapan is living with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) 
that causes AIDS. 

Reclining comfortably in an armchair in the Fireplace Lounge this 
past Wednesday night, Lapan addressed a crowded room in his talk, “Liv¬ 
ing wtih AIDS,” speaking with remarkable sagacity and eloquence. And 
after forty minutes, the fact that Lapan has HIV largely diminished in the 
face of his tremendous optimism and charisma. After all, the virus is but 
one hurdle in his life journey, asserts Lapan — “it’s life, everyone’s going 
to go through it.” 

Lapan, of Vermont, was born with the virus. One of five children, his 
mother described, “When we adopted him, he weighed only three pounds. 
They couldn’t find a home for him and they were desperate.” 

Now in high school, Lapan is very healthy, his handsome face rosy 
beneath the brim of his cap. He’s found a prescription without too many 
side effects and his viral count is very low. 

While he is small in stature, Lapan makes up for it with the fervent in¬ 
tensity with which he approaches life. He’s not shy about his condition. In 
fact, “he’s made [HIV] work to his advantage,” said Kelly Brighan, of Burl¬ 
ington’s Vermont Cares, an organization devoted to providing support for 
people affected by HIV/AIDS in addition to promoting AIDS education. 

Lapan has already had several girlfriends. “I’m a Casanova, what can 
I say?” said Lapan, shrugging his shoulders and eliciting a wave of laughter 
from the audience. And though he sometimes runs into trouble with par¬ 
ents, on the whole Lapan is loved by all. 

Yet while Lapan is fortunate to live in a very accepting community, he 
says he still encounters instances of prejudice. He described the difficulty 
he has had with holding onto a job. “They said they didn’t have any avail¬ 
able hours,” he said of one restaurant. Often he is told that he looks too 
small, too young to work the till. And though there are laws guaranteeing 
equal opportunity in the work place, “nowadays when they discriminate, 
they do it so discretely,” said Lapan. 



Courtesy 

Keeping the energy high, Chandler Koglmeier ’09, left, and Alex 
Braunstein ’09, right, served as Relay for Life co-chairs this year. 


probably have cancer or have someone really close to them with 
cancer. I Relay for the future generation,” said Braunstein. 

Koglmeier characteristically echoed his partner’s sentiments 
exclaiming, “The same goes for me!” 

And although the event was a success, Chalex’s duties are not 
quite finished. 

“My plans now consist of some follow-up meetings, plan¬ 
ning our VIP reception at Otter Creek, picking new co-chairs for 
next year, writing up a committee, sending out some thank-you 
notes...” 

Yet perhaps her most important plan for Relay wrap-up, says 
Braunstein, is “actually having a healthy phone and e-mail rela¬ 
tionship with Chandler.” 

And next week if you see Chalex around campus walking in 
circles at 3 a.m., thank them for their hard work, and remind them 
that it’s okay to stop now. 

copes with HIV 

Other times, Lapan is confronted with stigmas. “A lot of people still 
assume it’s a gay disease,” explained Brigham. 

“I have a colorful personality,” explained Lapan, laughing — and at 
times he finds himself pigeonholed into this stereotype. Such stereotyping 
is futile, asserts Brighan. 

“It does no good to focus on who’s getting it,” she said — it’s more 
important just to fight it. 

A large part of fighting HIV/AIDS is educating people about the 
virus. Lapan said he finds himself constantly confronted with mis¬ 
understandings regarding his condition. Once, when he and a friend 
bought a soft drink, Lapan explained how his friend expressed worry 
when they went to share it. 

“I want the world to be less ignorant [about HIV/AIDS] — I 
want everyone to be able to hold hands, without a millisecond of 
fear,” said Lapan. 

It follows then, that when asked how he’d like to be treated, Lapan 
replied, “The same way you’d be a friend to anybody else — we don’t like 
to feel awkward or different, we just want to be normal.” 

And just like other teens his age, Lapan is excited to cross the thresh¬ 
old into adulthood. He’s already talking about getting his own apartment, 
about exploring the wider world and first and foremost, about finding his 
roots. “When I turn 18, that’s where I’ll start,” he said. “I don’t know where 
I get my eyes from, and my nose and my smile.” 

Ready to strike out on his own, Lapan discussed pursuing film in 
Fitchburg, Massachusetts and expressed an interest in higher education. “I 
do want to go to college, I’m not sure for what.” 

A virus is not going to quash his dreams. Lapan has plans. “I’m going 
to be big. I want to go around the world to different countries and help out 
in Africa,” he declared, motioning to the table in front of him, “where they 
don’t have cookies like these.” 

Ultimately, it was not the specter of HIV/AIDS but rather Lapan’s 
overwhelming optimism and eloquence that permeated the talk, which 
was light and good-humored. When asked if he ever wishes that he 
hadn’t been born with HIV, Lapan replied “I don’t think I would.” “I 
wouldn’t be as colorful as I am, I wouldn’t be who I am. I wouldn’t be 
so ... BAM! ... me.” 


17-year-old lives, 

_By Aylie Baker__ 

Features Editor 



laws 

by Thomas Newton 

In a world where new is always bet¬ 
ter, Microsoft’s new operating system, 
Windows Vista, seems to be the excep¬ 
tion. Its introduction in January of this 
year was met with lackluster sales. Most 
users couldn’t see any reason to leave 
their trusty Windows XP for the marginal 
upgrades Vista offers. The very steep price 
and high system requirements also kept 
consumers away. Sales analysts thought 
this response normal, and assumed that 
consumers would upgrade to Vista when 
they bought new computers. This as¬ 
sumption seemed logical, as consumers 
tend to want the latest and greatest in re¬ 
gards to technology. Why, then, are Dell, 
Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo reintro¬ 
ducing Windows XP as an option when 
consumers purchase new computers? 

The answer is to respond to con¬ 
sumer demand. 

Richard Shim, an IDC analyst, said 
that, the fact “that there is remaining 
demand [for Windows XP), points to the 
inability of Vista to resonate with con¬ 
sumers.” Microsoft, in a statement about 
these companies’ reintroduction of XP, 
said that such a response is normal after 
the launch of a new operating system. But 
the question still exists: why are con¬ 
sumers demanding an old version of an 
operating system over a new one? 

The answer can be found in a com¬ 
parison between Microsoft and Apple, as 
they constitute the two main operating 
system manufacturers on the market. 
Where sales of Microsoft’s newest operat¬ 
ing system have been less than stellar, 
Apple has continued on an upward trend 
with regards to the number of users 
switching over from Windows to Mac. 
Part of this may be explained by Apple’s 
more aggressive advertising, but another 
aspect of the dynamic between the two 
companies may be the fact that Microsoft 
shamelessly copied its “new” features in 
Vista from Apple’s operating system, Mac 
OS X. Consumers may not see the sense 
in buying a brand new, bug-ridden op¬ 
erating system over the well-established 
system that it was copied from. 

For this argument to make sense, 
the features of Vista and OS X have to be 
compared. Microsoft lists the new fea¬ 
tures of Vista as updated and more fluid 
graphics, “gadgets” which are mini-apps 
that sit on your desktop and display up-to 
-date information, improved search¬ 
ing features that allow you to search the 
entire computer in seconds, new mul¬ 
timedia tools such as Windows DVD 
Maker and improved security. Apple’s 
OS X uses a dedicated core animation 
processor to create fluid, 3D graphics, 
has “widgets,” which inspired Window’s 
“gadgets,” Spotlight, which allows you to 
search the entire computer in seconds, a 
multimedia suite called iLife which in¬ 
cludes iDVD and iMovie and a very solid 
built-in security system. The features of 
Vista are blatant copies of those that have 
been found in Apple’s OS X since 2001. 
Microsoft, then, is not only suffering 
from poor sales of Vista because of high 
prices and requirements, but because 
Vista is in no way original. Why overpay 
for an operating system that is marginally 
better than the one it is replacing when 
you could just get the older version or 
switch to Apple? 















25 April 2007 




by Sage Bierster 


The sun is shining, birds are 
singing and plants are finally showing 
signs of life — that’s right, Spring has 
arrived. And with only weeks left in the 
semester, one’s thoughts naturally turn 
to exams, final papers and unrequited 
love. Well, more like unrequited sex. 
Everyone begins to think about ail 
those men and women on campus that 
they’ve always had their eye on, that 
they’ve never gotten with and might 
never see again. 

Seniors are the most prone to 
spring sex fever. With graduation 
looming at the end of May, they realize 
that the amount of time they have left 
to engage in college sex is dwindling. 
College is different than every other 
time in our lives because of the social 
environment we live in. Never again 
will we be in a situation where we live 
in such close proximity to 2,000 other 
20-somethings who are just as horny 
and uncommitted as we are. We don’t 
have jobs, apartments, dogs — we don’t 
have real adult lives yet and the sex we 
have reflects our lack of responsibilities 
and is relatively free of consequences. 
Time is running out for the Class of 
2007. 

Senior Week is the quintessential 
manifestation of last-ditch lust on this 
campus. Now, I’ve never been here to 
see the debauchery take place, but my 
sources have referred to it as a “hor¬ 
monal free-for-all,” and, I don’t know 
about you, but that definitely piques 
my interest. All of those deep-seated 
attractions that have gone unspoken 
for years are acted upon in a week-long 
orgiastic party. Basically, anything goes. 

Seniors also have the added bonus 
of the “senior crush list.” There is no 
better place to spill the contents of your 
unrequited heart than on a white 8.5 X 
11 sheet of printer paper on a dining 
hall billboard. In the spirit of Spring 
sex, tell the world of your love! Maybe 
that cute artsy guy has always had a 
crush on you, too. 

What if you have some unfinished 
sexual business but you are in a rela¬ 
tionship? While you should always be 
honest with your partner, talk to him 
or her, and try and work through your 
other urges. But don’t be surprised if 
you can’t have your cake and eat it too. 

For all the single underclassmen, 
be grateful that the people-watching is 
definitely better this time of year, and 
with everyone looking happier and 
healthier, it’s much easier to spot some¬ 
one you might not have noticed the rest 
of the year. The Library Lawn, Battell 
Beach and Proctor Terrace are prime 
daytime flirtation and ogling zones. 

The Last Chance Dance is legendary 
for obvious reasons, but it is mostly 
underwhelming. 

So what should your plan of action 
be? Well, first of all you should try to 
stick around for Senior Week. But it 
also means you should be on the look¬ 
out for that guy or girl you’ve always 
found appealing and go for it. Don’t 
hold back when you are filling out your 
senior crush list. Strike up a conversa¬ 
tion, ask your crush out for coffee, or 
make your way over to them on the 
dance floor, but do something because 
otherwise you will regret it. 


campusfeatures 


The liberal arts throw it down in Aikido 


Kimberly Richardson showcases martial arts-humanities link 


_By Mike Murali_ 

Assitant Features Editor 

“I like myself so much more than I did when I was 21 and I 
can live in my skin,” said Kimberly Richardson of Two Cranes Aikido, 
who gave a lecture at the College last Thursday as part of a sympo¬ 
sium on martial and liberal arts. The series of events, entitled “Pur¬ 
suing Knowledge Without Boundaries: Liberal Arts and the Martial 
Art of Aikido,” went from Tuesday, Apr. 17 through Friday, Apr. 20 
and featured a panel discussion, lectures and Aikido classes that were 
conducted by Jonathan Miller-Lane, as well as Richardson and Don 
Levine, both guest instructors. 

Aikido itself was started by Morihei Ueshiba, also called “O Sensei.” 
Born in central Japan, he was sickly as a child but eventually grew to be an 
individual strong of character who possessed an affinity for the martial 
arts. After practicing several martial arts, including Jujutsu and swords¬ 
manship, and enlisting in the army, he 
returned to farming and Japanese martial 
arts, developing an interest in and person¬ 
al style of Aikijutsu. As his dojo, a place 
of training for martial arts, progressed in 
the late 1940s and early ’50s, so did the 
spirituality of his art and thus Aikido, “the 
spirit of harmony,” was born. 

Richardson’s talk focused on her 
experience with Aikido and how it had 
impacted her views on life. Prior to mar¬ 
tial arts, her focus had been dance. After an incident where she saw a 
woman on the floor hurling people around seemingly effortlessly, she 
became entranced and developed a love for Aikido. “The techniques 
of Aikido are intended for us to use in examining the nature of power, 
to engage in uncompromising self-scrutiny, and to realize our poten¬ 
tial as powerful, compassionate, creative, self-aware human beings.” 

Among her first teachers was Mary Hiney Sensei, one of the highest 
ranked women in the world. A Buddhist practioner, Richardson claimed 
that “she had a great love for O Sensei” and a strong presence about her. 

In such a way, Richardson went through her own journey to teach 
Aikido and eventually founded Two Cranes Dojo in Seattle, Wash, 
in 1995. In addition to her duties as an instructor there, she serves 
as an adjunct faculty member at Antioch University where she offers 
a course entitled “Aikido as Martial Art and Spiritual Practice.” She 
also works as a consultant and trainer in conflict resolution, effective 
management and self-defense. 

Throughout her lecture Richardson, without missing a beat, 
would talk about her philosophy and demonstrate techniques while 


throwing around two of her assistants on stage, one of whom was 
Miller-Lane, Assistant Professor of Education at the College and 
founder of Blue Crane Aikido here in Middlebury. Miller-Lane was 
a former student of Richardson’s and the two schools are closely re¬ 
lated. 

One of Miller-Lane’s Aikido students, Jaime Lam ’09, who also 
serves as the Middlebury Aikido Club’s president, helped organize the 
symposium. 

“I had asked Jonathan Miller-Lane about his connections in the 
Aikido world. We had asked the Finance Committee for money, but 
were unfortunately denied sufficient funding. I suggested that Miller- 
Lane Sensei look at alternative sources of funding, such as the various 
symposium grants. He did so and got three amazing guest instructors 

to come to Middlebury.” 

Aikido was not Lam’s first foray into martial arts as he began his 
training in kung fu at five years old. “To 
be honest, I started doing martial arts 
as a kid because I wanted to be able to 
do flips and other Power Rangers-esque 
stuff, but it evolved into something a 
lot greater for me.” 

Lam became involved in Aikido at 
the College after a martial arts student 
of his introduced him to it. “I’ve come 
to realize that it isn’t just a martial art, 
it’s a wholesome life philosophy. It is the only martial art out there 
that stresses taking care of your opponent,” he said about the style. 

Lam praised Richardson’s talk. “Kimberly-sensei was nothing 
short of incredible, on and off the mat. She had such an amazing 
awareness of the world around her, and it translated very strongly 
into her Aikido techniques,” he said. “What also amazed me was the 
joy with which she trained; you could not catch her without a smile 
on her face while she was training, which is something very few peo¬ 
ple can say about any martial artist in the world.” 

Richardson spoke of the importance of the field that we live in. 
Aikido itself focuses on extending one’s sphere to encapsulate another 
and so control their movements with only slight movement on the 
part of the practitioner. “We in this culture yearn for a way to be con¬ 
nected. I feel like Aikido creates that,” she said of the martial art. 

In the end, Richardson showed that violence is not the answer, 
demonstrating the importance of spirituality in martial arts. As she 
said of the inner growth that comes with training, “You really can love 
people that you don’t particularly like.” 


Kimberly-sensei was 
nothing short of incred¬ 
ible, on and off the mat. 

— Jaime Lam 


15 minutes with... 

Matthew Leonard ’09 



Courtesy 


Childhood Dream... To be retired 


Greatest Fear... Being run-through with a sword (or any 
of that variety of sharp objects ... daggers, 
knives, sharpened pieces of wood, etc.) 


Favorite ice cream flavor... Cookie Dough 
Favorite boardgame... Chutes and Ladders 
Inspiration... New places 

Best movie made before 1990... “The Goonies” 

Hidden Talent... Backwards skiing 


C > 

WW 


What’s hot and what’s not on campus and in pop 
culture? The Campus gives its weekly report. 

Segolene and 
Sarkozy 

The 10 other 
French Presidential 
candidates 

France’s two biggest candidates gear 
up for a left-right political elec¬ 
tion that, dare we say, feels a lot like 
America. 

It would have been fun if the 

1 revolutionary communist was given 
a shot. 

Weekend of sun 

Weekend of sun 

■ 

Who can work when the weather is 
so beautiful? 

Who can work when the weather is 
so beautiful? 

Boston Red Sox 

New York Yankees 

Back-to-back-to-back-to-back 
home runs completes the first 
sweep of the Yankees at Fenway 
Park since 1990. 

A-Rod may be hot, but the Yankees 
are in trouble if they do not find 
good pitching before October. 


























editors’ 

picks 


25 April 2007 


arts 

The Middlebury Campus 




El • ee • mos • y • nar • y 

Story by Colin Foss • Photography by Angela Evancie 


A sensitive, probing Zoo play directed by Myra Palmero 
’07 examined the often precarious relationship that 
exists between grandmother, mother and daughter. 
Centered around the events of a spelling-bee the 
production utilized all aspects of theater to plumb the 
depths of three women’s thoughts and interactions — 
but did it hold the audience’s attention? 

See page 20 for the full review. 


Babymother 

Dana Auditorium 
4:30 p.m. 

This documentary by Middlebury 
alumna Caroline Morner Berg follows 
the lives of Nadia and Jasmine. Seven¬ 
teen and pregnant, the girls live in a 
home for pregnant teenage girls in New 
York. The viewers follow their uncer¬ 
tain paths to becoming mothers in their 
mid-teens and then lives of chaos. 




College 

Orchestra 

CFA Concert Hall 
8 p.m. 


Troy Peters conducts the Middlebury 
College Orchestra featuring soprano Sal¬ 
ly Swallow, the winner of the 2007 Alan 
and Joyce Beucher Concerto Competi¬ 
tion, performing “Glitter and Be Gay” 
from Leonard Bernstein s Candide. Also 
on the program are Mussorgsky and 
Dvorak. 


Spring Dance 
Performance 
CFA 
8 p.m. 




Chamber 
Music 
CFA 
7 p.m. 


Senior dance majors Tatiana Virvi- 
escas Mendoza ’07 and Louisa Irving ’07 
present their 500-level dance projects to¬ 
gether in an evening long concert. Draw¬ 
ing inspiration from time spent abroad 
Virviescas Mendoza and Irving investigate 
the process of solo and group choreog¬ 
raphy. Additional performance Saturday 


An evening of Solo & Chamber 
Music performances by Music De¬ 
partment student instrumentalists. 
Featuring two students who received 
an honorable mention in the 2007 
Alan & Joyce Beucher Concerto Com¬ 
petition. 




















25 April 2007 


Eccentric performances 


By Colin Foss 
Staff Writer 


You would think eccentricity is a trait 
that you learn, not inherit, but “Eleemosy¬ 
nary” offers a new take on the odd habits of 
your relatives. Maybe eccentricity is a choice, 
a deliberate life decision, made in order to 
cope better with a family beleaguered by 
their own intelligence and a cumbersome 
amount of communication problems. Such 
is the case in Eleemosynary , Lee Blessing’s 
celebrated 1987 play about three generations 
of women plagued with just these problems. 
A grandmother who can talk to stones, a 
mother who ran away from her family to be¬ 
come a celebrated chemistry researcher, and 
a one-time national spelling-bee champion 
all vie for each other’s acceptance in this de¬ 
lightfully dysfunctional play recently in pro¬ 
duction at the Hepburn Zoo. 

Academia looms heavy over each char¬ 
acter, both as a means to gain respect within 
the family and as an outlet for their frustrat¬ 
ed relationships with each other. In a skillful 
rendering of the role of Grandma Dorothea, 
Martha Newman ’10 truly embodies genius 
gone awry in an energetic and playful per¬ 
formance. Dorothea raised her granddaugh¬ 
ter Echo, teaching her ancient Greek and 
Latin while still in the cradle as an attempt to 
stave off the “intellectual child abuse” of her 
daughter Artie’s attempts to teach the baby 
incorrect words. 

Artie has good reason to subvert Doro¬ 
thea’s education, too. Or at least you under¬ 
stand why she would want to interrupt the 
influence of the eccentric grandmother. As 
a child, Artie involuntarily participated in 
a number of her mother’s strange theories. 
In a particularly dramatic scene, young Artie 
contemplates her own inevitable fall perched 
atop a wooden tower with a pair of linen 
wings attached to her arms. Her mother 
Dorothea narrates behind her the idea that 
humans can indeed fly, despite popular con¬ 
ventions. This is the stuff good home movies 
are made of. 

Cassidy Boyd TO interpreted Artie’s di¬ 
lemma as a struggle to escape her mother’s 
eccentricity and to deny her uncanny psy¬ 
chological resemblance to the rest of her 
family. She seemed desperate to distance 
herself, almost to the point of exasperation, 
but the depth of the problem seems under¬ 
developed. At her best, Boyd grappled with 
the tug of maternal devotion as Artie, dic¬ 
tionary in hand, drills Echo on the spelling 
of multi-syllable words over the phone. Boyd 
found here a rare drop of genuine fear, as it 
becomes apparent that the exercise is more 


for the mother’s benefit than for the better¬ 
ment of Echo’s spelling abilities. The champ 
complains that “orbit” is too easy a word, 
but to Artie it is not the orthography but the 
meaning of the words that draws her to it. 
She cannot approach her daughter emotion¬ 
ally and instead revolves around her from a 
distance. 

As her senior directing project, Myra 
Palmero ’07 pulled together a varied assort¬ 
ment of tools to develop the interpersonal 
conflicts inherent in Blessing’s text. She uses 
a pane of glass onstage to represent a sort of 
barrier within the family; they can see each 
other, but an invisible force somehow stifles 
communication. In a complex visualization 
of nostalgia, a projector shot onstage the 
home movies of Dorothea and her daughter 
on top of the wooden tower about to see if 
humans really can fly. When things get com¬ 
plicated, Palmero artfully intervened to help 
the audience navigate the intricate psyches of 
this group of nearly hysterical women. 

The events of the play orbit around the 
spelling bee championship, where the over¬ 
confident Echo finds herself neck and neck 
with a nervous contender who can only guess 
at the spelling of the judges’ words. Jacquie 
Antonson TO sees Echo as sure of her own 
victory, confident that she “knows every¬ 
thing” and that the championship is “in the 
bag.” The scene becomes narcissistic indul¬ 
gence, and turns the audience at the moment 
where sympathy is what could save Echo 
from disapproval. She is not a vicious char¬ 
acter, she simply misinterprets a sort of fam¬ 
ily burden to impress and achieve instilled in 
her since birth. 

Antonson throws tantrums and pouts 
her way through an inconsistent perfor¬ 
mance. At first, the innocence about Echo’s 
situation as the last in a long line of eccen¬ 
trics is endearing, but it quickly becomes 
exasperating when witnessing what she does 
with her family identity. What saves the char¬ 
acter is her relationship with Dorothea. Echo 
understands the complexity of her upbring¬ 
ing but, much like the audience, she is so 
irresistibly drawn toward her grandmother 
that her mother appears slighted and self¬ 
reproachful for having run away. Antonson 
allows her character to treat Artie with a 
good dose of mystery and earnest reverence 
that help to deepen the filial complications 
of the family. If only she treated the pivotal 
scene, the spelling bee, with the tenderness 
and the attention she elicited in other parts 
of the play. 

Of course, it is during this scene that 
Echo answers the question we have all been 


campusarts 


energize Eleemosynary 



Angela Evancie 


(Top) Cassidy Boyd TO and Martha Newman TO as divided daughter and mother. 
(Bottom) Jacquie Antonson TO as Echo, by her grandmother’s deathbed. 


asking ourselves. Her final word, the spell¬ 
ing of which wins her the championship 
and the fame she wants - Eleemosynary: 
of, relating to, or supported by charity. El¬ 
eemosynary the play does not make the con¬ 
cept easy to understand. No character gives 
freely or easily. No gift is accepted whole¬ 


heartedly. Not to mention the fact that “el¬ 
eemosynary” is a mouthful. However, with 
clear and insightful acting and Palmero’s di¬ 
recting prowess, this production does well 
to cut through the dysfunction and uncover 
the truly charitable, loving, and eccentric 
natures of these three women. 


Playing politics with Mark Erelli 



Melissa Marshall 

Singer/Songwrited Mark Erelli performing at Carol’s Hungry Mind cafe 


Politics, playtime and pine trees — Bos¬ 
ton-based singer songwriter Mark Erelli cov¬ 
ered his lyrical bases and then some during 
his Thursday night performance at Carol’s 
Hungry Mind Cafe. With six albums to his 
name and an upcoming tour alongside Lori 
McKenna, Erelli and his innocuous brand of 
roots folk-rock played comfortably and con¬ 
fidently in the small coffee shop basement. 
And even though fewer than ten people 
dappled the wooden chairs and overstuffed 
couches, the room felt crowded — Ereili’s 
rich tone, soulful harmonica and passionate 
guitar reverberated the cozy space from the 
floorboards to the rafters. 

Gaining critical acclaim for his 2006 
release “Hope and Other Casualties” — an 
album hailed by The Boston Globe as “a 
sturdy, winsome album, fueled by politics 
and emotion...a compelling addition to this 
young tunesmith’s already impressive cata¬ 
log” — Erelli entertained a hectic touring 
schedule that took him from Germany to 
the confines of the Champlain Valley. Even 
though his power as a poet may pale in com¬ 
parison to his aptitude as a musician, his 
thoughtfully crafted songs were comforting 
yet compelling as he crooned into the micro¬ 
phone stand. 

Due to the small turnout, Erelli con¬ 
densed two sets into one; however, his dou¬ 


ble encore compensated for the shortened 
performance as the audience was left cheer¬ 
ing on their feet. 

While the modern-day bard with a voice 
like Tom Petty and harmonica hum in the 
tradition of Neil Young seemed to be play¬ 
ing for his own enjoyment as much as for 
that of the audience, it was clear that he had 
a distinct message to impart. Mingled with 
the occasional lullaby for his child and the 
quintessential ballad about heartbreak were 
overt political overtones and themes that Er¬ 
elli did not bother to conceal with the estab¬ 
lished poetic tropes of symbolism or meta¬ 
phor. From protecting the environment to 
criticizing the war, Ereili’s acoustic awareness 
blended in perfectly with the Vermont state 
of mind, even if his occasionally contrived 
lyrics sometimes struck a wrong note. 

Mark Ereili’s concert was part of an on¬ 
going ambition of the Cafe to bring live mu¬ 
sic to the establishment, hopefully increasing 
its ambience as well as it patronage. “We’re 
increasing live acts all the time,” said owner 
John Melanson. “Right not we’re at two Sat¬ 
urdays a month, but Friday night might be 
opening up. We’ve had Pete and J in here 
who drew a pretty big crowd, and cellist Nick 
Ogawa wants to play.” 

- Melissa Marshall 











campusarts 


Junior Boys lacked musical maturity 



_ By Jordan Nass ar _ 

Staff Writer 

Junior Boys? Are you sure? They look 
more like senior men. But beyond the fact 
that these older-than-everyone-thought 
electro-artists failed to draw much of a 
crowd, their concert at Higher Ground in 
Burlington left me disappointed, to say the 
least. If the venue hadn’t had Magic Hat 
on tap, I don’t know if I would have made 
it to the end of the show. I persevered, how¬ 
ever, and left with yet another example of 
a certain little-talked-about issue in music 
today: the recording artist and their place 
in the performance world. 

Before we get to all of that, though, let’s 
talk about Junior Boys’ set. They played all 
the songs that we all love off of their newest 
LP, So This Is Goodbye, as well as my two 
personal favorite tracks from their previ¬ 
ous album Last Exit, “Birthday” and “More 
than real.” All of this was good except for 
the fact that it sounded completely differ¬ 
ent from their album. And not in the good, 
creative and professional way. I appreciate 
a different performance style as much as 
the next person, but the over-rock-icized 
versions of the songs we love seemed clum¬ 
sy, and at times members of the band came 
off as unnecessary. I just personally didn’t 
see the use of a live drummer drumming 
over pre-recorded beats. I also didn’t see 
the point in the lead singer playing guitar 
along with a prerecorded bass-line, or the 
bass with a prerecorded guitar melody. 

The albums that Junior Boys have 
put out are works of art. They consis¬ 
tently write musically complex and intel¬ 
ligent beats, with good-enough lyrics to 
go right along. I have listened to So This 
Is Goodbye count¬ 
less times, as a lot of 
Middleburystudents 
sem to hae done jud- 
gin from the charts 
atWRMC. Yet only 
at the concert did I 
realize that there is 
scarcely a raw guitar 
or bass line on the 
album. The drums 

on the album are also electronically pro¬ 
grammed, but honestly, that’s the way I 
like it. Junior Boys’ albums are electronic 
music, and yes, it is hard to perform a pro¬ 
grammed beat live. 

Standing at the concert were: drums 


I just personally 
didn’t see the use 
of a live drummer 
drumming over 
prerecorded beats. 


overpowering the rest of the instruments, 
the keyboard player looking bored out of his 
mind — not to mention not actually playing 
the intricate parts - those 
were prerecorded — and 
the lead singer going 
through the songs, offer¬ 
ing neither pizzazz nor 
personality. Most of the 
time I was thinking that I 
would rather listen to the 
album and I basically was 
waiting for the concert 
to end. If I hadn’t heard 
them before this concert, I would not have 
bought their CD. A concert is supposed to 
make a band more popular, whereas, when I 
left, I did not run to the car to put on their 
CD. When I left, all I needed was some 
drive-thru and to get back to Middlebury. 


Courtesy 

This leads me to the moral of the story. 
A band made up of amazing performers is 
great. There are many bands that you must 
see live to fully appreciate, their albums not 
doing them justice. I like to refer to these 
as “bands.” There are also recording artists: 
musicians who are gifted, truly amazing at 
recording an album — writing and editing 
their songs, arranging them, and perfect¬ 
ing them, making real works of art. These 
recording artists produce the CDs that you 
listen to so much that the CD gets messed 
up and you have to buy a second one. Both 
are equally prestigious forms of artists, they 
are just different, and I would advise re¬ 
cording artists to perform less and record 
more. I flat-out did not want to hear their 
CD after their concert, making me think 
that perhaps they shouldn’t perform. So, 
that was goodbye. 


African American Alliance walks it out 



Lizzy Zevallos 

The annual African American Alliance (AAA) fashion show took place Saturday evening in McCullough. The show featured separate 
sections developed by one or two stylists, each section working to portray a theme or ‘look.’ Many styles of dress were covered from 
varieties urban-wear to lingerie. The evening was also an opportunity to thank two of the organizations graduation co-presidents, Carol 
Wilson ’07 and Chris Heinrich ’07. 


25 April 2007 


THE REEL 

CRITIC 

by JoshWessler 

“Reign over Me” has Adam Sandler 
looking disheveled, with hair flowing over 
dark, deep-set eyes. An alcoholic’s drawl 
lurks behind a thick New York accent. He 
appears like a rebellious adolescent though 
it’s his most mature role to date. The film 
mixes the sad and funny into a story about 
lost friendship and kinship, and about how 
forgetting can make that loss easier. Sandler, 
playing a disillusioned man named Charlie 
Fineman, is outstanding in an otherwise 
mediocre movie. The film is worth seeing 
even if it’s only for a few key performances, 
not the least from Paula Newsome as a sar¬ 
castic receptionist. It is aLso worthwhile as a 
post-9/11 elegy, taking a different look at the 
cultural fallout from the disaster. 

Charlie is a hard-core rocker (he plays 
drums) and a hard-core gamer, both of 
which he pursues to the exclusion of any¬ 
thing resembling responsibility or maturity. 
Alan Johnson (Don Cheadle) is a hard-work¬ 
ing dentist who has a profitable practice and 
a supportive family. The unlikely duo were 
once roommates in dental school, but when 
they run into each other on the street one 
night in New York City, Charlie has no recol¬ 
lection of their previous relationship. Devas¬ 
tated by the loss of his wife and kids on Sept. 
11,2001, Charlie has been living as a recluse 
on insurance money. His toys help to dull the 
sensation of loss and tragedy. Intrigued by 
the trauma Charlie suffered, Alan decides to 
try and rekindle Charlie’s memories. 

Relying on a limited number of situ¬ 
ations demonstrating Charlie’s depressed 
state, writer-director Mike Binder repeats 
them to emphasize their importance. One 
such situation takes place early in the duo’s 
re-established friendship, when Alan asks if 
Charlie still practices dentistry. Charlie re¬ 
sponds in the affirmative, and demonstrates 
how skilled he has become at the “Shadows 
of the Colossus” video game. Binder’s over¬ 
reliance on montages becomes tiring and the 
plot drags towards the middle of the movie. 
Binder aims for the type of mystique cap¬ 
tured brilliantly in Roman Polanksi’s “Chi¬ 
natown,” but Charlie’s occasional paranoia 
seems contrived. Other than the initial diag¬ 
nosis of trauma and depression, Binder gives 
Sandler little to work with. Binder attempts 
to work with a range of textures, playing with 
light, color and sharpness, but unfortunately, 
his dialogue gets in the way. One particularly 
painful scene between Alan and his wife, 
Janeane (Jada Pinkett Smith), in which they 
discuss a photography class, is completely 
superfluous to the story and the dialogue 
comes off sounding like amateur copy. Yet, 
Binder most enjoys the moments without 
dialogue, letting Charlie ride uninhibited 
through the New York streets. His cityscape is 
as lonely as the one David Fincher evoked in 
“Panic Room.” 

Faced with Charlie’s Holdenesque 
naivety, Alan realizes his own life’s stagna¬ 
tion, but finally comes to terms with the 
stability of adulthood. Charlie, on the other 
hand, does not. Is Charlie the face of our 
generation — apathetic and amnesiac? 
Charlie would rather drown out the memory 
of Sept. 11 with the din of video games and 
loud rock music than face the pain of reality. 
As the children of the boomers, we question 
our lack of urgency and recklessness in the 
face of new world conflicts. Are we really so 
easily pacified with surround sound and a 
plasma T.V.? The film seems to long for the 
turmoil that could have resulted from the 
World Trade Center attacks — social upris¬ 
ings always make for great art Instead, as a 
generation, we are stuck like Charlie; we find 
no easy answers to the questions lingering 
after that fateful day in 2001. 








22 


25 April 2007 



for the record 

by Melissa Marshall 

“From the roof of a friend’s I watched an 
empire ending,” quakes Conor Oberst’s voice 
with a sense of foreshadowing on the April re¬ 
lease, Cassadaga. As the driving force of Bright 
Eyes, Oberst’s wavering vocals have transcended 
the confines of pop culture to become the voice 
of God for many a rubber-braceleted, pseudo - 
existential My Space poets. Perhaps this ever 
multiplying generation of emo-children relates 
to his notoriously rebellious high school years 
or the sense of isolation which permeates his 
songs. Or maybe it’s just the choppy haircut 
that the chronically misunderstood find so 
attractive. But Nebraska’s claim to fame seems 
to have outgrown his reluctant status of emo 
posterchild with Bright Eyes’ latest endeavor. 
The seventh full-length album from the three- 
man outfit continues where I’m Wide Awake 
and IPs Morning left off, cultivating a more 
defined country twang and folk sensibility that 
was first introduced to fans in the opening 
chords of “At the Bottom of Everything.” 

In 2005, Oberst shocked and impressed 
critics and colleagues alike with the simulta¬ 
neous release of Digital Ash in a Digital Urn 
and Vm Wide and It's Morning. Juxtaposing 
the two distinct and very different sounds of 
electronica and folk respectively, the prolific 
front man seemed to create his own crossroads. 
Two career paths laid before him: the sterile city 
streets dappled with the temptation of mind- 
alteration and dark ladies, and the winding 
dirt roads of spiritual awakening and political 
leanings. Although traces of Fevers and Mirrors ’ 
philosophy can still be heard on “If the Brake- 
man Turns My Way” and the closer “Lime Tree,” 
Oberst points the steering wheel West back to 
his roots on Cassadaga — an album that would 
play as comfortably in an worn pick-up truck 
as it would in a Lower East Side coffee shop. 

Hailed by Paste Magazine as the 67th great¬ 
est living songwriter with an ability to create 
songs that are “seismographs charting both 
the tiny and vast rumblings of his soul-search¬ 
ing generation,” Oberst does not disappoint 
with Cassadaga. Whether it’s the toe-tapping, 
lightening fiddle of “Four Winds” or the sweep¬ 
ing orchestration of “No One Would Riot for 
Less,” the record plays like a road trip across 
the heartland of America with Oberst as our 
jean-clad, modern Virgil. And although it’s 
apparent on tracks such as “Coat Check Dream 
Song” and “Clairaudients” that he does not 
agree with some of the close-mindedness or 
blind patriotism often attributed to that part of 
the country, he focuses more on the glaring hu¬ 
manity found there. On “Middleman,” arguably 
the best cut from the album, Oberst quavers, 
“The dead can hide beneath the ground and the 
birds can always fly/But the rest of us do what 
we must in constant compromise” — a line that 
seems to simultaneously offer an apology as 
well as an excuse for our actions. 

Even though Bright Eyes’ ringleader has 
not outgrown his feverish warble, he has aged 
lifetimes through the booklets of his albums. 
And while Cassadaga may be a shock to fans 
that fell in love with the discontented boy of 
Letting off the Happiness y most listeners will 
appreciate the weary melodies of a man whose 
soles miss the soil of his roots. The record may 
not necessarily sound like the Bright Eyes the 
industry’s used to, but as you wander among 
the tracks with the familiar out-of-pitch nar¬ 
ration as your guide, the ending line of “Lime 
Tree” gains new meaning. Although he may 
seem lost among the complex layering of Cas¬ 
sadaga , Conor Oberst finds a more developed 
version of himself with every step he takes. 


- campiu arts 

Pulitzer Prize-winner visits Midd 



Alicia Taylor 

Poet Phillip Levine, who won the Pulitzer in 1994, spoke before a crowd of 75 students 
and faculty Thursday evening. 


_By Grace Duggan___ 

Staff Writer 

Jay Parini, D. E. Axinn Professor of 
English & Creative Writing, did not exag¬ 
gerate by introducing Pulitzer Price-win¬ 
ning poet Phillip Levine last Thursday 
evening as a “permanent part of American 
literature.” Levine, who was born in De¬ 
troit, Michigan in 1928, has written more 
than 16 books of poetry and has received 
significant recognition and numerous 
awards for his work. He was honored with 
the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1994 for 
“The Simple Truth.” His visit, sponsored 
by Atwater Commons, the Creative Writ¬ 
ing Program and the English 8c American 
Literature Department, included a short 
question-and-answer session during 
which Levine mused on everything from 
the validity of labeling him a political 
poet to the work of Charles Bukowski. 

Levine read a mixture of older po¬ 
ems and more recent ones, some of which 
have yet to be published. His poems were 
almost upstaged by his strong wit and 
modest, informal demeanor — he intro¬ 
duced several of his poems with humor¬ 
ous anecdotes or observations and made 
sure to thank Parini for his “generous and 
largely true introduction.” 

Before reading “Philosophy Lesson,” 
Levine addressed the crowd on the theme 
of logical positivism integral to the piece: 
“Like critical theory in literature today, it 
was aimed at both boring and destroying 
us all.” In the poem the speaker is recog¬ 
nized by a waitress in a roadside diner he 


does not remember having visited before. He 
compared one of his pieces to “Rilke with 
a mean streak” and made fun of the British 
versions of some of his books before quickly 
telling the crowd, “I don’t hate the English. I 
don’t know them.” Levine kept the audience 
laughing frequently throughout the read¬ 
ing, but was also able to maintain a solem¬ 
nity required in reading his darker poems, 
particularly those about war. As much as he 
incorporated humor into his speech and po¬ 
etry, he moved the audience with his frank 
admission of the haunting effect his cousin’s 
death has always had on his life before read¬ 


ing “Before the War” and “After the War,” 
both about World War II. Toward the end 
of the reading, done with his enjoyable jokes 
and stories about life in Detroit, he rejected 
his classification as a political writer. 

“Most of my political poems have no 
agenda whatsoever,” he said. “When you 
see people you love and you see their lives 
come to so little because of the political sys¬ 
tem in which they live, and you write about 
it, you’re considered a political poet...But I 
can’t believe that America won’t recover a 
little bit from the disasters it’s in right now. 
I haven’t lost hope yet.” 





Spotlight on... Knef King 


Knef King ’08 
has been hosting a 
WRMC hip-hop 
show ; “Color Out¬ 
side the Lines and 
Movemental Radio ,” 
with Des Jennings and Nora Sutton since he 
stepped foot on this campus. He has also been 
the Business Director and Hip-Hop Manager 
at WRMC since his sophomore year. In all 
his time at Middlebury, Knef has always kept 
hip-hop, and ways to increase its exposure , in 
his head. 

The Middlebury Campus: How did 
you first get involved with the hip-hop 
genre? 

Knef King: If I really think about it, my 
interest in the hip-hop genre stems from 
jazz. Jazz and other influences were always 
around me as my father was a jazz vinyl 
addict. My earliest memories of hip hop 
were Wrecks and Effects and the brand new 
Kris Kross CD my brother got with his way 
too cumbersome boom box when I was 
six or seven years old. The first song I ever 
memorized was Warren G’s “Regulate” off 
the Above the Rim soundtrack when I was 
about 10 years old, but hip-hop was some¬ 
thing around me through my friends and 
family. It took being isolated at boarding 
school for hip-hop to begin to define me; 
or rather for me to realize it had been such 
a huge influence in my life because I craved 
it so much as I wasn’t so readily available 
anymore. 

TC: How has it inspired you person¬ 
ally, and what do you hope other people 
will gain through exposure to it? 

KK: Hip-hop has inspired me through 
the positive ways in which it resonates with 
me. I hear a lot of talk about how negative 
an influence can be on some people, and 
that can sometimes be true, but the way I 
was raised taught me to never conform and 
only follow what you believe in. Hip-hop 
has taught me about sacrifice, grinding hard 
for what you believe in no matter what, a 
love for everyone around me and its’ true 
essence has most importantly brought me 
strength, energy when I don’t have it, faith 


and a constant belief that real people are out 
there. That may be surprising to those who 
have a negative view of hip-hop, but they 
just aren’t looking in the right places. I hope 
that other people learn the universal nature 
of music and good vibes that can be found 
in the genre. To become good at any of the 
four (or five depending on your outlook) 
elements of hip-hop, there is a scary learn¬ 
ing curve of initial discomfort and perhaps 
embarrassment. However whether you are 
interested in DJ-ing, MCing, breaking, writ¬ 
ing (graffiti) or beat boxing, it’s your desire 
to let go of ego and pursue your interest at 
all costs that takes you further. 

TC: In what ways have you tried 
to increase the presence of hip-hop on 
Campus? 

KK: I always try to show people the 
threads of hip hop that can be found 
in other forms of music, politics and 
even simple things in day to day life like 
persevering through obstacles. I perform 
whenever I can at any kind of event pos¬ 
sible. Opening myself up to experiences like 
rhyming in the library with Middlebury’s 
Musician Guild free-styling over harmoni¬ 
cas with Professor of Music Peter Hamlin 
show different people a different side of hip 
hop. When I hear a saxophone playing in 
someone’s room, I’ll knock on their door 
and ask if I could freestyle for 45 seconds 
then go about my business just like I 
might start free-styling with friends coming 
back from the Grille. Hip- hop is great in 
so many ways, but few people get a chance 
to see them because it’s not marketed well 
enough. This past weekend I promoted a 
show named Hip Hop Academic with an 
educational panel on Saturday with artists 
like Add 2 from Chicago, DJ P Funk from 
NYC, Mai from Atlanta by way of Okla¬ 
homa, K Flay from Stanford and Nap Nat of 
African American Project from South Side 
Chicago to help promote an authentic form 
of hip-hop with a conscience. 

TC: 1 know you have quite the reputa¬ 
tion as a firee-style rapper. What triggered 
you to start free-styling? Do you have any 
further plans to pursue that talent? 



Courtesy 


KK:I initially started free-styling on 
the school bus coming home as a defense 
mechanism. I occasionally became a light¬ 
ning rod for other people’s tempers because 
I didn’t project a nasty attitude and others 
felt they could try and walk over me. After 
a couple of scuffles and in-school suspen¬ 
sions through altercations I truly didn’t 
start, I realized I could use my mind. The 
next time a freestyle cipher started up and 
the words were directed towards me, instead 
of simply staying quiet, I responded. I think 
I avoided another physical confrontation 
that first time simply because everyone was 
so surprised that the athletic, academic, 
do-good boy started rhyming. Free-styling 
to me is great, and I’ll continue to try and 
record the better ones, but really it’s just a 
form of expression. It’s therapy for me first 
and foremost, but I’m just starting to realize 
that others appreciate my own personal 
stress release, so perhaps I’ll continue down 
that lane. Lately, I’ve become more of a per¬ 
fectionist and would like to take that free¬ 
wheeling, naturalistic rhyming element that 
comes from hip hop and apply it to written 
rhymes so I can refine some words into my 
dream: The Perfect Verse. That’s where my 
head is at right now: that verse that every¬ 
one can relate to and use for inspiration or 
knowledge every time they listen to it 

-Melissa Marshall 





















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www.middleburycampus.com/freetrip 


25 April 2007 


23 


®tfe jHtirMelmry (Eampus 


IS CURRENTLY ACCEPTING 
APPLICATIONS FOR THE FOLLOWING 
POSITIONS FOR THE 
FALL 2007 SEMESTER 


ASSOCIATE EDITOR: ASSISTS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF AND MANAGING EDITOR 
IN ALL ASPECTS OF NEWSPAPER PRODUCTION. WORKS CLOSELY WITH SEC¬ 
TION EDITORS. COPY-EDITING AND LAYOUT SKILLS A MUST. 


NEWS EDITOR: RESPONSIBLE FOR CONCEIVING, ASSIGNING AND EDITING 
NEWS STORIES. ALSO RESPONSIBLE FOR LAYOUT OF SECTION. MUST BE 
AWARE OF CAMPUS NEWS AND HAVE A MIND FOR CREATIVE JOURNALISM. 


LOCAL NEWS EDITOR: RESPONSIBLE FOR CONCEIVING, ASSIGNING AND 
EDITING LOCAL NEWS STORIES. ALSO RESPONSIBLE FOR LAYOUT OF SEC¬ 
TION. MUST BE INTERESTED IN TOWN AND STATE POLITICS AND COMMU¬ 
NITY EVENTS AND HAVE A MIND FOR CREATIVE JOURNALISM. 


OPINIONS EDITOR: RESPONSIBLE FOR LEADING EDITORIAL DEBATE, 
DRAFTING WEEKLY STAFF EDITORIAL AND EDITING OPINIONS PIECES, LET¬ 
TERS TO THE EDITOR AND EDITORIAL CARTOONS. ALSO RESPONSIBLE FOR 
LAYOUT OF SECTION. MUST HAVE A KEEN INTEREST IN CAMPUS LIFE AND 
SHARP EYE FOR CONTROVERSY. 


FEATURES EDITOR: RESPONSIBLE FOR CONCEIVING NOVEL, INTERESTING 
AND PERTINENT STORY IDEAS AND ASSIGNING STORIES. THIS POSITION 
OFFERS AN EXCITING LEVEL OF FREEDOM, ALLOWING THE EDITOR TO 
SHAPE THE SECTION, AS OPPOSED TO THE SECTION SHAPING THE EDITOR. 
ALSO RESPONSIBLE FOR LAYOUT OF SECTION. 


ARTS EDITOR: RESPONSIBLE FOR CREATING AND ASSIGNING ARTICLES 
BASED ON ARTS-RELATED EVENTS AT THE COLLEGE AND IN THE SUR¬ 
ROUNDING COMMUNITY. MUST BE ABLE TO THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX 
AND CONCEPTUALIZE INNOVATIVE FEATURE IDEAS. ALSO RESPONSIBLE 
FOR LAYOUT OF SECTION. 


SPORTS EDITOR: ASSIGNS AND EDITS ALL SPORTS STORIES. SHOULD BE FA¬ 
MILIAR WITH MEMBERS AND COACHES OF MIDDLEBURY ATHLETIC TEAMS 
AND IN TOUCH WITH NON-VARSITY ACTIVITIES. MUST HAVE A KEEN EYE 
FOR POTENTIAL SPORTS-RELATED FEATURE STORIES. ALSO RESPONSIBLE 
FOR LAYOUT OF SECTION. 


COLUMNISTS: RESPONSIBLE FOR CONTRIBUTING WEEKLY OR BIWEEKLY 
COLUMNS IN ANY SECTION OF THE NEWSPAPER. MUST BE WILLING TO 
RESEARCH ISSUES AND DEVELOP ORIGINAL, WELL SUPPORTED STANCES 
ON CAMPUS ISSUES. 


PLEASE NOTE THAT ASSISTANT EDITORSHIPS ARE 
AVAILABLE IN ALL EDITORIAL DEPARTMENTS. 


PHOTO EDITOR: RESPONSIBLE FOR COORDINATING STAFF PHOTOGRA¬ 
PHERS AND TAKING PHOTOS ASSIGNED BY SECTION EDITORS AS WELL AS 
EDITING AND PLACING PHOTOS IN THE LAYOUT. 


PRODUCTION ASSISTANT: RESPONSIBLE FOR DESIGNING PAGES AND 
ASSISTING SECTION EDITORS WITH LAYOUT. KNOWLEDGE OF LAYOUT 
SOFTWARE A PLUS. 


ILLUSTRATOR: RESPONSIBLE FOR PRODUCING CARTOONS AND EXECUT¬ 
ING ILLUSTRATIONS REQUESTED BY SECTION EDITORS. 


FOR MORE INFORMATION 
OR TO REQUEST AN ELECTRONIC APPLICATION, 
PLEASE CONTACT 

CAMPUS@MIDDLEBURY.EDU 















25 April 2007 


campussports 


~ 31 :a i n * HiifiMUMim ; j 


Senior Track and Field Co-Captain 
Mary Frederickson was not a juvenile jav¬ 
elin thrower. She actually did not begin 
throwing javelin until her sophomore year 
of high school. 

It was then that her soccer coach, who 
was also the track and field coach, asked 
her to consider running track to stay in 
shape for soccer. 

When Frederickson, a native of Flor- 
ham Park, N. J., began training for the 400- 
meter event the following spring, her coach 
asked her to reconsider sprinting, and try 
throwing javelin. 

“Since I could throw the soccer ball 
well,” said Frederickson, “she convinced me 
to try javelin. It’s been history ever since.” 

It’s been history in a lot of ways for 
Frederickson since coming to Middlebury, 
who chose to major in the subject. 

The farthest distance Frederickson has 
ever thrown is 129 feet. When asked if she 
has ever accidentally, or intentionally, hit 
anyone with a javelin, she didn’t comment. 

At least when it comes to TV, her fa¬ 
vorite show is “Flavor of Love” featuring 
Flava Flav, so hopefully she takes his mes¬ 
sage of love to heart and doesn’t ever aim 


The Campus tracks Mary Frederickson *07 



Frederickson 

Suite G 

i 

Bolger 

What movie is always playing 
in your suite? 

Remember the 
Titans 

Wedding Crash¬ 
ers (0) 

Remember the 
Titans (1) 

What’s your favorite place in 
town to get breakfast? 

Middlebury Bagel 

Middlebury 
Bagel (1) 

Middlebury Bagel 
(1) 

What’s your favorite song? 

“Hey Baby” 

“Hey Baby” (1) 

“Gettin’Jiggy with 
it” (0) 

What’s the best class you ever 
took at Middlebury? 

Songs and Social 
Movements 

Songs and Social 
Movements (1) 

Baseball’s Negro 
Leagues(0) 

What are you going to miss 
most after you graduate? 

Angies, of course 

Thursday nights 
at Angela’s (1) 

Clearly Thursday 
at Angie’s (1) 

Who is your favorite fresh¬ 
man on the team? 

Laura Dalton 

Anjuli Demers 
(0) 

Laura Dalton (1) 

What’s your favorite kind of 
cookie? 

Chocolate Chip 

Chocolate Chip 
(1) 

Chocolate Chip (1) 

final score 


5 

5 



for people. 

In this week’s competition, Frederick- 
son’s Atwater suitemates opted to compete 
together against her track and field teammate 
Christine Bolger ’07. 


Even though “There’s Something About 
Mary” is not the movie always playing in 
Suite G, there is something about Mary and 
Angela’s on Thursday nights, chocolate chip 
cookies and Middlebury Bagel. 


Both Bol¬ 
ger and all of 
Frederickson’s 
roommates in 
Suite G were 
able to cor¬ 
rectly match 
her answers 
when it came 
to cookies, Middlebury 
memories and breakfast. This week’s com¬ 
petition resulted in a tie. 

Frederickson had reservations about 
designating Laura Dalton as her favorite 
first-year on the team, as she says “they’re 
all great!” She chose Dalton because she re¬ 
minds Frederickson most of herself “back 
in the day.” 

Frederickson will launch herself from 
the track and field field to the finance field 
after graduation in May. She will be work¬ 
ing as a private equity analyst in Stamford, 
Conn. 

This Saturday Frederickson and the 
rest of the track and field team will host 
the NESCAC Championships, beginning at 
9:30 a.m. 

— Brooke Farquhar , Sports Editor 


m 

;i 

'll! 

HIM 


niiwmv j 

Date 

Sport 

Vs. 

Results 

Comments 

April 20 
April 21 
April 22 

Softball 

Amherst 

Hamilton 

3-2 W, 2-0 

L, 1-0 W, 8- 
2 W, 6-5 W 

The Panthers showed resilience as they 
played five games in three days against 
Amherst and Hamilton, winning four. 

April 20 
April 21 

Baseball 

- ---r—r—J 

Amherst 

3-2W 

2-1 L 

16-6 L 

Justin Wright ’08 pitched all of game one 
allowing only two runs, one earned, on five 
hits, two walks and three strike outs. 

April 21 
April 22 

Women’s 

Lacrosse 

Wesleyan 

Conn. College 

10-9 W 

16-2 W 

Amanda Smith ’08 scored five goals and 
had four assists over the weekend. 

April 21 
April 22 

Men’s Tennis 

Amherst 

Trinity 

' I 

6- 3 W 

7- 2 W 

The Panthers continued their remarkable 
NESCAC winning streak, reaching their 
39th consecutive conference win. 

April 22 

Women’s 

Tennis 

Conn. College 

8-1 W 

Claire Smyser ’08 and Clare Burke ’09 won 
both their singles and doubles matches on 
Sunday. 





11 


22 


67 

3rd 


Letters in the names of both John Lanahan ’08 and Nick 
Lefeber ’08, as their first names use four and their surnames 
use seven. 


Stolen bases for both Lanahan and Lefeber this year, 
through the Amherst series. 


Hits this season for both Lanahan and Lefeber this year, 
through the Amherst series Both has had one go for a 
home run. 


At-bats for both Lanahan and Lefeber this year through the 
Amherst series. 


Place their .328 batting averages rank on the baseball team. 
The third Tri-Captain Noah Walker ’07 is hitting .403. 


Editors’ Picks 





Questions of the week 

Brooke Farquhar 

Simon Keyes 

Jeff Patterson 

Will Middlebury top last year’s 
number of five individual NESCAC 
titles in the Track and Field 
Competition this weekend? 

YES 

Mary Frederickson is this week’s athlete in 
Inside the Locker Room. It is good luck for 
the team. 

YES 

Led by Co-Captain Beth Butler ’07 and 
energized by the home crowds, the Panthers 
will run wild at NESCACs. 

YES 

Home field advantage will help the field 
athletes and will a-track lots of screaming 
supporters to the event. 

How many goals will the Middlebury 
women’s lacrosse team beat Tufts by? 

THREE 

It is Jeff’s lucky number. 

FOURTEEN 

Honestly, this is such a shot in the dark, we 
might as well chalk up another one in the loss 
column for me. 

SIX 

That’s what time I’m getting up tomorrow. 

Who will be the number one overall 
pick in this weekend’s NFL Draft? 

JAMARCUS RUSSELL 

Calvin Johnson should go number one, but 
the Oakland Raiders need a quarterback. 

JAMARCUS RUSSELL 

If Calvin Johnson could drop back into 
the pocket, and pass the ball to himself 
downfield, then the Raiders would take him. 

JAMARCUS RUSSELL 

LSU’s big quarterback will be the big winner 
in the Big Apple on Saturday. 

Will a Canadian team win the Stanley 
Cup? 

YES 

Because as I’m writing this, Vancouver just 
beat Dallas in game seven. I’m inspired. 

NO 

Buffalo is close to Canada, but the Sabres and 
perpetual winner Chris Drury will curb any 
hopes of a Stanley Cup north of the border. 

NO 

The Sharks are going to swim all the way. 

What side of the ball will the New 
England Patriots draft for? 

OFFENSE 

After picking up Adalius Thomas from 
the Ravens, the Patriots’ defense is looking 
good. 

DEFENSE 

The Pats desperately need a safety to step in 
when Rodney Harrison is done. They also 
need a youth movement in their linebacking 
corps. 

DEFENSE 

Tom Brady is so good he does not need a 
supporting cast — he just needs a defense 
that keeps games close. 

Record 

7-12 (.368) 

5-19 (.208) 

29-30 (.492) 


































































































25 April 2007 



Women’s water polo rides their (sea) horses to the finals 


_ By Jeff Patterson_ 

Sports Editor 

The womens water polo team can be add¬ 
ed to the list — it is yet another Middlebury 
team that has been overwhelmed by overtime. 
The Panthers had a 5-4 lead over Dartmouth 
in the final seconds of regulation in the New 
England Division Championship game, but in 
the end, the Big Green prevailed. 

“They scored with two seconds left, which 
sent us into overtime,” said Tri-Captain Whit¬ 
ney Thomas ’07. “That was tough. We had a lot 
of shots. There were a lot of missed shots on 
both sides.” 

In the extra session, Dartmouth opened 
up the game and scored two goals, winning by 
a tennis-like score 7-5. 

“We’ve had a lot of experience playing 
Dartmouth, and we know that they are ca¬ 
pable of turning a game around in seconds,” 
wrote Tri-Captain Lisa Niswander ’07 in an 
e-mail. Dartmouth certainly did that as its 
players threw darts from just outside Lee 
Corbett’s goal mouth. 

Niswander was on the mark in the cham¬ 
pionship, as she scored three of the team’s five 
goals, including the game’s first goal. 

“Going into the game we knew it was go¬ 
ing to be low scoring,” wrote Niswander. “To 
get the first goal on the board was a huge mo¬ 
rale booster.” 

Her classmate Thomas scored the Pan¬ 
thers’ other two. 

“Lisa had a great game,” said Thomas. “It 
was a real standout performance by her.” 

Obviously in the deep-end of the pool, 


water polo players cannot stand out of the 
water, but need to tread water or swim, just to 
stay buoyant. After an exhausting four games 
in two-days, the Middlebury players certainly 
got their exercise. 

“It was a very tiring game,” said Thomas. 
“[Our effort] showed a lot about our team.” 

“We were exhausted,” wrote Niswander. “I 
think the adrenaline kicked in though, every¬ 
one played as if it were her first shift.” 

Prior to the Dartmouth defeat, the Pan¬ 
thers topped Wesleyan and Yale on Saturday 
and Williams on Sunday. 

“These wins moved us to the front of the 
bracket and it set us up for the champion¬ 
ship round,” said Thomas. “People who hadn’t 
scored all season scored in some of the other 
games. Because it was such a tiring weekend, it 
was really vital to have so many subs available 
as opposed to Dartmouth who has their start¬ 
ing players and only one or two subs.” 

The loss to Dartmouth officially ends the 
Panthers successful 2006-2007 campaign in 
which they went 9-3. Dartmouth, 12-0 and the 
winner of the New England Division, will ad¬ 
vance deeper into postseason play. 

Still, there is a lot for Middlebury to take 
from this weekend. “Three of the four games 
were the toughest three we’ve had all season,” 
said Thomas. “All three together in one week¬ 
end was a delight.” 

With the wonderful weather outside, 
playing in the pool was a lot easier for the 
competitors. 

“It’s an entirely different game when there 
is nice weather, said Thomas. “You want to be 
in the pool and splash around.” 



Courtesy 

Karen Stahlheber ’07 and the Middlebury women’s water polo team reached the finals of the 
New England Division Championship. There, the Panthers fell to Dartmouth 7-5 in overtime. 


Hoeschler family keeps the 

Continued from page 28 


log rolling at Middlebury 


their feet the whole time, trying to be astute on 
what they’re trying to do, when they get out of 
control, and when I should try and do some¬ 
thing. It’s a huge mental sport, you just have to 
fight harder.” 

Here at Middlebury, Hoeschler has as¬ 
sumed the role of teacher. While she often 
gives log rolling lessons on Thursdays and 
Sundays, she herself did not bring this sport to 
Middlebury. Hoeschler has two older sisters, 
Katie ’03.5 and Lizzie ’05, who are responsible 
for that feat. 

“Katie, the oldest, brought log rolling to 
Middlebury,” said Hoeschler. “Then Lizzy kept 
it going. And now I’m doing the same.” 

The three sisters were trained at a young 
age by their mother Judy, “the matriarch of log 
rolling,” as Abby describes her. Mrs. Hoeschler, 
a seven-time world log rolling champion, 
trained her children the way she was trained 


when she started at the age of 12 — by throw¬ 
ing them onto a log at an early age. 

“From the age that we could swim, she 
took us to log rolling classes at the YMCA, 
which she taught,” said Hoeschler. “So we just 
played on the log, and we would compete in the 
six-and-under class when we were five.” 

Even with all three sisters rolling with each 
other from a young age, there is no animosity 
between siblings whatsoever. 

“There’s no rivalry only because we never 
really had to compete against each other until 
we all became pro,” said Hoeschler. “Our ages 
were spaced far enough apart that we always 
missed each other in the age divisions.” 

The age differences, which kept them 
from competing at an earlier age, now may 
actually drive the three sisters when they 
square off against each other, especially for 
Abby, the youngest. 

Of competing with her sisters, Hoe¬ 


schler said, “I would rather lose to my sisters 
than someone else not in the family. It might 
be different for them because they’re older. 
They definitely have a harder time accepting 
losing to me.” 

Regardless of her opponent, however, Hoe¬ 
schler has stayed busy training and competing 
on the log rolling circuit during the summers. 
Training is especially convenient and enjoyable 
as it entails practicing on the logs, spending 
time outside in the sun, in the water and with 
family at a neighborhood pond. 

As for the logs, they are not just the aver¬ 
age downed tree that one stumbles across in 
the forest. 

“The logs are western red cedar, they come 
from the northwest coast and a lot of times they 
can come from recycled telephone polls,” said 
Hoeschler. “Lumber companies will get the or¬ 
ders and lathe them to make them smooth and 
perfect the diameter.” 

Hoeschler left the family pond at the age 
of five and started competing once or twice a 
summer. As she grew older, and more tourna¬ 
ments began sprouting up across America, her 
summers were usually booked with six tourna¬ 
ments a season. 

Log rolling as a sport has not changed 
much from its 19th century origins. The act 
of log rolling, called “river driving” then, was 
actually the method used by lumberjacks to 
bring wood from the forests down river to the 
saw mills. The lumberjacks would jump across 
the floating logs, guiding them down river. The 
competitive aspect developed after the river 
drives were finished, when lumberjacks would 
have informal contests to see who could remain 
on the log the longest. 

Today, log rolling competitions are con¬ 
structed as such. There is a large draw that 
works its way towards a final of the last two log 
rollers. Before the match begins, the two rollers 
assume positions on the log. If they are both 
facing the same direction on the log it is called 
a running match, and if they are facing oppo¬ 
site directions, it is called a bucking match. 

The match begins with the two competing 
on a 14-inch diameter log. If neither falls — at 
the professional level, the match rarely ends at 
this diameter — then the two move to the 13- 
inch diameter log. Should neither fall again, the 
log is changed to a 12-inch diameter size. 

“The smaller the log, the faster it rotates in 
the water, the harder it is to stay on the log, but 
almost all of my matches go to that log,” said 


Hoeschler. “With my sisters, on the 12- inch 
log, we’ll have matches that go for 2-3 minutes 
at a time.” 

Each match is in a best out of five format, 
with the only rules being that a roller may not 
cross the center line of the log, and that there 
may be no interference with each other. The 
only way in which to tumble an opponent is to 
manipulate the log so that they fall off. 

Back in Middlebury, in order to facilitate 
the learning process for students, the Hoeschler 
family donated a 17-inch diameter log with 
which students can practice. While still relative¬ 
ly unknown to most students at Middlebury, 
there is a quietly growing fan base for the sport. 
Many friends of the three Hoeschler sisters can 
admit to having tried the sport at least once. 

And while there is no official club yet, 
there are frequent lessons available, and next 
year one term of log rolling can fulfill a Physi¬ 
cal Education requirement. 

Besides fulfilling credit, what draws people 
to this sport? 

“The beauty of it is that it’s a very simple 
sport to understand, but an extremely hard to 
sport to actually do and even harder to perfect,” 
said Hoeschler. “When you step on the log for 
the first time you have absolutely no idea what 
to do with your body, yet it’s addicting.” 

Leah Skahen ’09 first tried the sport last 
year with the log rolling class and has become a 
regular down at the Natatorium ever since. 

“I took the logrolling class last year be¬ 
cause for the first time I wasn’t busy with 
other commitments and I finally had time to 
do something completely new and different,” 
said Skahen. “It’s great because anyone can do 
it. Everyone is scared to get on the log and make 
a fool of themselves, but after a few times it is 
not that hard. It’s a fun sport because you’re 
competing every second you’re on the log.” 

As for her future in the sport, Hoe¬ 
schler will be taking a summer hiatus from 
the sport due to an internship. It marks the 
first summer since she was five during which 
Hoeschler will not compete. Yet this does not 
worry her too much. 

“I know that I have many more years of 
log rolling in me,” said Hoeschler. “Beyond 
competing, log rolling will always be a part 
of my life because I love to teach and pro¬ 
mote the sport.” 

In the meantime, however, she will contin¬ 
ue to teach and watch many aspiring log rollers, 
like myself, tumble into the water. 



Courtesy 

Abby Hoeschler ’10.5 watches as Jenny Atkinson hits the water. Hoeschler placed third in 
the event, the 2006 World Log Rolling Championships, which were held in Stillwater, Minn. 



























25 April 2007 



by Jeff Klein 


You know what seems ridiculous 
to me? Professional athletes who wear 
jewelry during games. 

This is an idea I’ve held for as long 
as I’ve been following professional sports, 
but it has become increasingly notice¬ 
able in recent years as more and more 
Major League Baseball (MLB) players 
— and even some National Football 
League (NFL) players — are donning an 
assortment of earrings and necklaces, if 
not both. 

The most convincing argument 
against wearing jewelry on the field is 
that it is potentially dangerous. 

Back on Aug. 26, 2001, in a game 
between the Cleveland Indians and the 
Seattle Mariners, Cleveland batter Omar 
Vizquel complained to the ump that 
the diamond-studded earrings worn 
by Seattle pitcher Arthur Rhodes were 
distracting him, as they were reflecting 
sunlight that obstructed Vizquel’s view of 
the ball. 

If Vizquel couldn’t see, how would 
he duck out of the way of an inside pitch? 

The ump ordered Rhodes to remove 
his earrings. Rhodes immediately became 
incensed, pointing menacingly at Vizquel 
and indicating that he would attempt to 
hit him with the next pitch. 

The ump was left with no other 
alternative but to eject Rhodes. Why was 
Rhodes so furious? 

“I told the umpire I’ve been wearing 
them the whole year,” he said. “So why 
should I take them out?” 

Arthur, you should take them out 
because you look ridiculous wearing 
them. 

Several years ago, when I was watch¬ 
ing Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back 
Warrick Dunn get up from a pile of 
bone-crushing tacklers, I noticed a thick 
silver necklace under his helmet. 

Wearing jewelry in football is even 
more dangerous than in baseball, yet I’ve 
seen multiple NFL players on the sideline 
remove their helmets and reveal their 
bling. 

Most of the time they’ll be wearing 
earrings, like the yellow diamond ones 
wide receiver Terrell Owens has worn on 
occasion during games. 

I guess he doesn’t understand the 
hazard this creates, wearing these things 
while playing one of the most contact- 
heavy sports in the world in which seri¬ 
ous injuries happen frequently. 

Just one awkward landing from a vi¬ 
cious hit by a linebacker could cause him 
to permanently regret ever making such a 
foolish decision. 

Moving beyond the safety factor, 
there is simply no place for jewelry in 
professional sporting events. The idea of 
wearing stuff on the field that you’d wear 
to a party seems just a little absurd. 

Doesn’t the notion of wearing jewel¬ 
ry contradict the rugged, intense attitude 
that professional athletes are supposed to 
convey? I’m not saying that a big-league 
pitcher who wears a necklace isn’t trying 
his hardest, but the whole concept just 
seems at odds with one’s occupation as a 
professional athlete. 

So make it simple: the commission¬ 
ers of both MLB and the NFL should 
put a ban on all jewelry while players are 
out on the field. Not only would it serve 
as a safety precaution, but it would also 
improve the image of each league. 

Save the jewelry for the champion¬ 
ship rings. They are big enough in their 
own right. 


_campu sports 

Gallagher ’07 was second in Massachusetts 


_By Simon Keyes _ 

Sports Editor 

After stumbling out of the starting gates 
on April 14 at the Vassar College Invitational, 
the women’s golf team seems to be regaining its 
Fall season form. The Panthers placed second 
in the Jack Leaman Women’s Championship 
this past weekend in western Massachusetts. 

The field was one of the most competitive 
fields the Panthers have seen all season, as it 
featured not only NESCAC rivals Amherst and 
Williams, but also six Division I teams, includ¬ 
ing eventual winner Boston College. 

The biggest challenge during the week¬ 
end, however, may have been the courses, 
which showed signs of the late arriving 
Spring. The moist fairways, rough and greens 
made the courses play exceptionally long as 
shots would either land softly on the ground 
or plug into the earth. Fortunately for all the 
golfers, beautiful weather all weekend made 
the golfing quite pleasant. 

The two-day tournament started on day 


one at the par-74 Hickory Ridge Golf Club, 
Amherst’s home course. After the first 18, 
Middlebury found itself in second place be¬ 
hind only Boston College. 

The day-one surge was led by Captain 
Heather Gallagher ’07 who posted a 78. Karen 
Levin ’08 was not far behind with an opening 
day 80. Rounding out the Panthers were Allison 
Ortega ’07 (82), Julie Ellenberger ’09 (87),and 
Kerry Ortega ’07 (88). 

“We bounced back nicely from our di¬ 
sastrous performance last weekend at Vas¬ 
sar and ended the day in second place only 
behind Div. I Boston College,” wrote Kerry 
Ortega in an e-mail. 

Day two was a special day for all the golfers 
as they were given the privilege of playing on 
the legendary golf course, The Orchards, host 
of the 2004 U.S. Women’s Open. The course, 
a par-72, requires incredibly precise shot-mak¬ 
ing as it is ridden with hazards and false fronts 
on the greens. 

Middlebury was up to the challenge, how¬ 
ever, and fended off Williams by four strokes to 


secure second place with a team two-day total 
of 676 (+92). Boston College won the weekend 
with a combined 633 (+49). 

Gallagher challenged The Orchards all day 
and finished the day at a notable four-over-par 
76. Her two-day total of 154 (+8) gave her sec¬ 
ond overall in individual play, only two strokes 
back of Boston College’s Katie Napleton. 

“Heather had a fantastic round, shooting 
76,” wrote Kerry Ortega. “It was especially im¬ 
pressive because we were on a difficult course 
that played really long because it was wet.” 

Besides Gallagher, the rest of the Panthers 
finished no lower than 40th overall. Levin 
finished tied for 15th with a 168 (+22), Kerry 
Ortega finished tied for 26th with a 177 (+31), 
and her sister Allison posted a 180 (+34), good 
for a share of 35th overall. Ellenberger rounded 
out the team tied for 40th with a 183 (+37). 

Next weekend, the team will continue to 
enjoy playing on another well-known course 
when it travels to Williams College’s Taconic 
Golf Course for the Williams Coed Classic on 
April 28-29. 


Williams ’07 beats rival Amherst twice 



■ 





Nirvana Bhatia 

The softball team pounded out 17 hits in a three-game series at home against Amherst. 


Continued from page 28 

the softball field saw smaller numbers. The 
Panthers narrowly beat the Lord Jeffs by a 
score of 3-2. 

In a situation similar to that against 
Plymouth State on Wednesday, Amherst held 
a 2-0 lead over Middlebury in the second in¬ 
ning. While Ellen Sargent ’07 did notch a run 
for Middlebury in the second inning, it was 
not until the fifth that the win was somewhat 
sealed. After singling to right field and steal¬ 
ing second, Katelyn Cannella ’08 was brought 
home by Magistrali’s triple. Maura Casey’s ’07 
single to centerfield drove Magistrali home in 
the fifth as well to put the Panthers in a win¬ 
ning position with three runs. 

Of her big hit in the second of that game, 


Casey said, “There are always big plays in every 
game, but our team doesn’t depend on one su¬ 
perstar to always be the one to pull through in a 
tough situation. We really play as a team.” 

Jennifer Williams’ ’07 pitching solidified 
Middlebury’s win over Amherst on Friday. 
In the sixth inning the Lord Jeffs stood on all 
three bases, but Williams held her cool to show 
Amherst the only comeback team on the field 
was her own. 

Williams’ pitching performance continued 
to drive the team through the doubleheader 
against Amherst on Saturday. After losing game 
one 2-0, the Panthers again narrowly beat the 
Lord Jeffs 1 -0 in game two. Allison Bard ’08 had 
the lone run for the Panthers, while Williams 
allowed only two hits. 

“We had great consistent performance 


from everyone on the field and a lot of clutch 
fielding plays to stifle their offense and keep 
them to four runs over three games,” said Sul¬ 
livan. “As a team we felt we were struggling with 
our hitting, so the few hits necessary to pull off 
the wins were pretty crucial.” 

Back-to-back doubleheaders are not easy 
to get through, especially when there is only one 
night of rest and 187 miles between them. The 
Panthers remained unfazed by the demanding 
schedule, and carried their focus into the series 
against Hamilton, coming out 2-0 and improv¬ 
ing to a 5-3 NESCAC record. 

8-2 seems to be a good winning score 
for the Panthers, who beat Plymouth State by 
that score Wednesday and Hamilton by the 
same score Sunday morning. The second game 
against Hamilton proved to be more of a chal¬ 
lenge, but Sullivan’s three RBIs and Burke’s 
two and two-thirds scoreless innings gave the 
team what it needed to defeat the Continentals. 
Middlebury pressed through to win 6-5. 

“Hamilton surprised us by bringing their 
bats,” said Sullivan. “Fortunately, though, we 
hit well, too and managed to both jump on 
them early to secure a lead and come back 
when necessary.” 

The third game of the series against 
Hamilton is to be played Thursday in New 
York. The team will certainly be able to rest 
before this match up, though their demanding 
schedule last week seemed only to give them a 
winning momentum. 

“I’m really proud of the team because this 
week we proved that we have what it takes to 
win the big 1-0 games,” said Sullivan. “Our plan 
is to finish the sweep of Hamilton on Thursday 
to put us at 6-3 and then sweep Wesleyan to 
finish NESCAC play 9-3 and definitely go on to 
win NESCACs.” 


mr~ Middlebury Power Rankings 


Rank 

4/18 

Team 

Simon Says... 

1 

2 

M. Tennis 
(16-1) 

Men’s tennis last lost a NESCAC match in regular 
season or conference tournament play in 2002. 

2 

1 

W. Lacrosse 
(KM) 

This may be the best team to ever be ranked num¬ 
ber two since Middlebury Power Rankings began. 

3 

3 

W. Tennis 
(10-3) 

NESCACs will be a barometer of this team’s talent. 
Hopefully a rematch with Bowdoin lies ahead. 

4 

5 

Softball 

(17-9) 

Last week I said they had to pick up their NESCAC 
play. They responded with four conference wins. 

5 

4 

M. Lacrosse 

The Panthers proved that they can play with the 
best teams, but they need to win the close games. 

6 

6 

W. Golf 

Up they go as they beat five D-I teams, and two 
NESCAC rivals this weekend on two tough courses. 

7 

8 

Baseball 

(9-10) 

Unlucky. Jack Britton ’08 allows only two runs (one 
earned), but the Jeff’s Nick Kehoe spins a one-hitter. 

00 

7 

Track & Field 

I forsee track triple-jumping higher in the rankings ( 
after this weekend’s NESCAC Championships. 

S 






















campus sports 



Ilhan Kim 

Nearly 600 fans came out to Kohn Field on Saturday to watch Middlebury play Wesleyan. Most of them left disappointed after the Panthers lost in OT. 


Follansbee stings the Panthers in OT 

Continued from page 28 


Wesleyan drew first blood against the 
run of play when Follansbee won a ground - 
ball and fooled Middlebury goalie and Tri- 
Captain Alex Palmisano ’07. 

The lead did not last long, as Middlebury 
was able to hit back within three minutes, 
courtesy of a righty overhand bounce shot by 
Tri-Captain Nick Bastis ’07. The goal, which 
Bastis buried low to the stick side on Congle- 
ton, was his 17th of the season. Two minutes 
later Middlebury took its first lead of the 
game. On a great individual effort, Tom Petty 
’09 — who is having a breakout season with 
57 points — snuck around the cage, beating 
Congleton up high to put Middlebury up 2- 
1 . 

The lead was short-lived, though, as Ja¬ 
son Ben-Eliyahu tied the score at two. 

The score remained that way until the 
fourth quarter. The last 15 minutes began 


with some controversy as face-off specialist 
and tri-captain Peter Mellen ’07 was called 
for a push that the crowd vehemently dis¬ 
agreed with. Wesleyan’s Mike Hines promptly 
took advantage of the flag when he scored off 
of a pass from Chris Jasinski. 

Middlebury kept its cool and was back 
on level terms two minutes later when Sky- 
ler Hopkins ’09 shot one past Congleton just 
under the crossbar. After the equalizer, the 
crowd sensed that Middlebury was beginning 
to press and maybe another was imminent. 
They got their wish when Wesleyan sopho¬ 
more defenseman Spike Malangone was dis¬ 
ciplined for a slash. Midfielder Mike Stone 
’09 scored from way out to put the Panthers 
up 4-3. Congleton had no chance of reacting 
to the shot and was beaten top shelf. 

The Panthers wisely tried to kill the clock 
and the game by keeping possession, but the 
strategy backfired when they were forced out 


of the box with 1:14 remaining. The teams 
then exchanged turnovers on the clear by 
Wesleyan, but the Cardinals ended up with 
the ball in Middlebury’s half with just over 50 
seconds on the clock. 

Jasinski then saved the day for Wesleyan, 
running directly at Palmisano and beating 
him with only 22 seconds to go in regulation. 
Jasinski quieted the crowd as roars erupted 
from the Wesleyan sideline. Middlebury ac¬ 
tually had two shots to win it before overtime 
but neither found the mark. 

Overtime was over seemingly before it 
even began. In a wacky 23 seconds, Mellen 
won the draw, took it down field and fired 
a shot, but once again Congleton made the 
stop. Then, with Middlebury’s midfielders up 
in the Wesleyan half, the Cardinals quickly 
cleared it. Follansbee received the ball and 
walked-in on Palmisano, finishing low under 
Palmisano’s stick for the win. 


Rugby will go 
to California 

Continued from page 28 

A spectator might attribute the team’s 
success to the “haka” or Figian dance the team 
does before every game. Epeli Rokotuevekao 
introduced it to the team a few years ago, and 
although Luke Yoquinto ’08 said he does not 
understand all the words of the chant accom¬ 
panying the dance, the sequence is a way of 
“bearing your soul to battle.” Its Figian roots 
exempt the team from imitating the dance of 
the New Zealand All-Blacks. Yoquinto added 
it would be “sacrilegious” to imitate the dance 
of the greatest team in rugby (although ASU 
does before every game). 

Patterson is confident the high level of 
performance his team is exhibiting will con¬ 
tinue. 

“Our play is at an all-time high and we 
are a much better team than when we lost to 
[Coast Guard] in November,” wrote Patter¬ 
son. “Playing unknown opponents is part of 
our sport, and we did take some time to scout 
them while we were in Florida.” 

Suffice it to say, the men’s rugby team 
showed Patterson its stuff over the weekend. 

“There were so many exciting plays that I 
will have to study the game tape to remember 
them all,” wrote Patterson. 

The team, along with a group of parents 
and alumni, is in the process of petitioning 
the school for a full-time head coaching posi¬ 
tion for the rugby club — and for Patterson. 

“We’re trying to get him hired as a full 
time coach,” said Yoquinto. In light of the 
team’s performance this season, he added, 
“Essentially without him we’d be nothing.” 


The straw-ng play that broke the Camels’ backs 



Mike Bayersdorfer 


Jamie Haar ’10 teamed-up with Chandra Kurien ’09 to win the number-three doubles 
match against Connecticut College. Middlebury won the match 8-1. (See the Brief above) 


_2 5 April 2 007 

sportsbriefs 

by David Infante 

Women’s Lacrosse extends its 
winning streak to nine games 

The women’s lacrosse team contin¬ 
ues to roll here at Middlebury, with the 
Panthers picking up their ninth consecu¬ 
tive win this past Sunday on the road 
against Connecticut College. Middlebury 
tallied 16 goals on 42 shots with nine 
separate players contributing for the 
win. Middlebury also showed stalwart 
defensive play while allowing Conn. Col¬ 
lege only two of 11 shots in the contest. 
Both Katherine Entwisle ’08 and Amanda 
Smith ’08 netted hat tricks in the game 
and Kate Barton ’09, Liza Humes ’07 and 
Mimi Schatz ’08 all had two goals each. 

The Panthers, undefeated in confer¬ 
ence play, will be looking for a chance to 
continue the successful season this Satur¬ 
day, when they play against Tufts at home. 
After that game, the team will continue on 
to the first round of the NESCAC Tourna¬ 
ment, to be played the next day. 

Men’s Tennis goes unbeaten 
in another NESCAC season 

Middlebury men’s tennis locked its 
fifth undefeated NESCAC season this past 
Saturday with a 7-2 victory over Trinity 
College. The Panthers secured their 39th 
straight NESCAC victory with solid sin¬ 
gles play from both Andrew Thomson ’10 
and Conrad Olson ’09. On the doubles 
court the squad was equally dominant, 
with two of the three Middlebury pair¬ 
ings registering victories. Middlebury 
Men’s Tennis will continue their season 
this coming Friday in the opening round 
of the NESCAC Championship Tourna¬ 
ment held at Amherst College. 

Camels were not much of a 
contest for Women’s Tennis 

The Middlebury women’s tennis 
squad came up big against Connecticut 
College this past Saturday in a match that 
spanned an entire Sunday afternoon. 

Playing at home in front of a crowd, 
the Panthers defeated the visiting Conn. 
College team by a margin of 8-1. In dou¬ 
bles play the Panthers were undefeated, 
with all three pairings winning their 
matches. On the singles court the team 
was similarly dominant, and dropped 
only one match to the visiting Camels. 

Elizabeth Stone ’09 was particularly 
excellent for Middlebury, blanking her 
opponent Sage Shanley with two 6-0 de¬ 
cisions on her birthday. 

The women’s squad will continue 
their season this coming weekend at 
Amherst, where they will play the open¬ 
ing round of the championship tourna¬ 
ment against an undetermined NESCAC 
opponent on April 27th. 



Track and Field fared well in 
tune up before NESCACs 

It was the women of the Middlebury 
Track and Field squad that stole the show 
this past weekend at the Dartmouth Invi¬ 
tational. Senior Beth Butler (800 meters) 
and sophomores Alexandra Krieg (5,000 
meters) and Kelley Coughlan (triple jump) 
won their events, with Coughlan setting a 
new school-record in the triple jump with 
a mark of 36’11.5.” The women’s 4x400 
team, comprised of Butler, Simone Weis- 
man ’09, Anjuli Demers ’10 and Laura 
Dalton ’10 reset a second Middlebury re¬ 
cord with a time 3:58.19, earning second 
place at the meet. 

The men entered a solid performance 
as well at the meet, with third-place finish¬ 
es from Bobby Marcoux ’07 (discus) and 
Jimmy Butcher ’08 (5,000 meters). 

The Panthers will bring it all back 
home this Saturday when Middlebury 
hosts the NESCAC Championships. 




















28 




25 April 2007 


sp orts 


Rugby reaches Nationals 


Nirvana Bhatia 


Right-hander Brittany Burke ’08 pitched a total of 16.2 innings this weekend, striking out a total of six batters. 

Busy Brittany Burke baffled batters 


By Brooke Farquhar 
Sports Editor 

If you thought you had a busy 
weekend, talk to a softball player. The 
women’s softball team played five 
games between Friday and Sunday, 
but somehow managed never show 
to signs of exhaustion. 

After hosting Amherst for two 
days, the team drove to Clinton, N.Y. 
to face Hamilton in a double head¬ 
er on Sunday. Despite the intense 
schedule, the level of play never fal¬ 
tered, and the team took four wins 
on the weekend to improve its NE- 
SCAC record to 5-3 and its season 
record to 17-9. 

What has defined the perfor¬ 
mance of the women’s softball team 
since the beginning of their string of 
games last Wednesday is a classic, be¬ 
loved theme in sports: the comeback. 
Whether down by the first game in 

Softball 

Sunday, April 22 


Hamilton 


a series or down by a couple of runs 
in the first few innings of a game, the 
Panthers have proven their intensity 
and focus by coming from behind to 
win five of their last seven games. 

A big loss and a big win marked 
the team’s doubleheader against 
Plymouth State on Wednesday, April 
18. The Panthers gave up a whopping 


13 runs in the first game, even with trali ’09 and Carolyn Davis ’08. The 


home field advantage, falling 13-7. 
Down by a game in the series and 
two runs in the second inning of the 
second game, the women decided to 
turn up the heat — a lot. 

Lily Hamburger ’08 preheated 
the hot bats in the second inning 
with a single to right center. She was 
also the first to come home, followed 
by Brittany Burke ’08, Amelia Magis- 


run of four runs in the second inning 
fueled the team’s defensive play. In 
the final three innings of game two, 
the Panthers gave up only one hit to 
Plymouth State and, in doing so, suc¬ 
cessfully held the opposing team to 
its sole two runs. 

On Friday, the scoreboard at 

See williams, page 26 


_ By Brooke Farquhar 

Sports Editor 

The trip down to Florida over 
the weekend was a second spring 
break for some of the members of 
the men’s rugby team. It was also a 
huge break for the entire team in re¬ 
gard to their success this season. 

The Middlebury men’s rugby 
team will compete in the Division 
II Championship for the first time 
against Arkansas State University 
(ASU) on May 5 in Stanford, Ca¬ 
lif. The game will air on CSTV at 
1 p.m. 

Although the location of the 
tournament in Sanford, Fla. made 
for a sunny trip, the road to the 
championship game was not so 
clear. 

Middlebury went into the tour¬ 
nament ranked second in the North¬ 
east behind the U.S. Coast Guard 
Academy, and was seeded seventh in 
the tournament. Despite facing the 
second-seeded team in the bracket 
and the number one team in the 
West, the Panthers trounced the 
University of Northern Colorado in 
the first round, 39-27. 

Middlebury then faced anoth¬ 
er number-one ranked team, this 
one from the MidAtlantic. Salis¬ 
bury was seeded above Middlebury 
in the bracket at number six, and 
was coming into the semifinals 
off a big win over Humboldt State 
University. 


But Salisbury’s confidence 
coming into the semifinal match 
proved irrelevant. Middlebury’s 
defense stuffed Salisbury’s offense 
in what Head Coach Ward Patter¬ 
son called “the best game of the 
year.” Middlebury dominated the 
match, beating the team by a score 
of 59-14. 

ASU comes into the final after 
a close game with the Coast Guard, 
the two-time defending champs. 
The 25-24 win came off of a pen¬ 
alty kick in the last seconds of the 
match. 

Rugby 

Sunday, April 22 


Middlebury 


Salisbury 


“We need to keep up our in¬ 
tensity,” wrote Matt Volz ’07 in an 
email. “We’re all very excited right 
now, and we need to carry that over 
into the championship game.” 

ASU was not the only team to 
have instrumental penalty kicks. 
Sophomore Ari Silverman went 
nine-for-nine in extra point kicks 
for Middlebury. 

For the first time in his career, 
Patterson is taking his team to the 
championship game. In the past 
decade he has led the team to five 
undefeated seasons in the confer¬ 
ence and to the quarterfinals of the 
National Championship twice. 

See rugby will go, page 27 


A win was not in the Cards against Wesleyan 


By Andrew Donnantuono 
Staff Writer 

The men’s lacrosse team 
dropped its record to 7-4 when it 
fell 5-4 in overtime to Wesleyan 
on Saturday. The highly anticipat¬ 
ed game certainly lived up to the 
hype. 

Cardinal attack Russ Follans- 
bee, who opened the scoring 4:47 
into the contest, needed only 23 
seconds in overtime to slam the 
door on Middlebury’s hopes of 
winning a seventh consecutive NE- 
SCAC regular season title. 

With the loss, the Panthers just 
missed out on a perfect 8-0 home- 
record and, with double-overtime 
losses to Colby and Trinity, they are 
still searching for that elusive over¬ 
time win. 

With temperatures in the 70s, 


Saturday finally felt like lacrosse 
season. The game drew nearly 600 
spectators, including many former 
players. 

The win for Wesleyan was even 
sweeter because of this. Last May, 
defenseman Gabe Wood ’06 ran the 
entire length of the field and scored 
a last second game-winning goal in 
the fourth quarter of the NESCAC 
championship game. 

Wesleyan exacted a little re¬ 
venge on Saturday and looked up 
to the task early in the first quarter. 
Although Middlebury enjoyed a 9-5 
advantage in shots over the period, 
Wesleyan’s zone made it difficult for 
the Panthers to get quality chances 
on goalie Charlie Congleton. 

“Wesleyan does a great job de¬ 
fensively of covering things up in¬ 
side and forcing shots,” said Coach 


Ilhan Kim 

Middlebury’s close game with Wesleyan had at least one fan bitting his nails. 


Dave Campbell ’00. “When you do 
get a shot in tight you have to beat 
their goalie which we weren’t able 


to do on Saturday.” 


See Follansbee stings, page 27 



Courtesty 

Abby Hoeschler T0.5 has been log rolling against bigger opponents most of her life. 


Hoeschler is not ants-y on the log 


By Simon Keyes 
Sports Editor 

I inch my way delicately across 
the log, flailing my arms to stay bal¬ 
anced. Worse yet, the log is still being 
stabilized on both ends by two more 
established log rollers. The two final¬ 
ly let go of the log, and I start moving 
my feet up and down frantically. The 
log slowly begins to rotate backwards 
and now I’m essentially hobbling on 
a narrow treadmill. One of the other 
log rollers begins to yell some advice, 
but her help is immediately drowned 
out by a splash and the quiet of un¬ 
derwater. 


For the novice log rollers, those 
who may stumble into the Natatori- 
um once in a while to try out this ob¬ 
scure sport, my experience is one to 
which they can probably relate. The 
sport is easy to learn, but takes years 
to master. Luckily for Middlebury 
students, they have just the person to 
train them in the art of log rolling. 

Abby Hoeschler, a 20-year-old 
first-year Feb hailing from La Crosse, 
Wise., has, for 15 years, been log roll¬ 
ing competitively with a great deal of 
success. She has won the La Crosse 
Log Rolling Open two years in a row 
and placed third in the 2006 World 
Championships, beating out the 10- 


time world champion in the process. 

While not imposing by stature, 
Hoeschler has a steady mental game 
which helps her compete and often 
win. 

“I’m the smallest female com¬ 
petitor, and I have a disadvantage be¬ 
cause of that,” she said. “It’s a disad¬ 
vantage because a weight advantage 
helps you control the way the log 
spins. So if you have two equally tal¬ 
ented log rollers, the heavier one will 
generally win in a perfect world. So 
I make up for it with my endurance. 
I move my feet faster, I’m watching 

See hoeschler family, page 25 


this week in sports 


Inside the Locker Room: 
Mary Frederickson ’07 

Who knows the track and 
field star better? page 24 



games to watch 

Baseball vs. Hamilton, April 27 at 4 p.m. 

NESCAC Track and Field Championships, April 28 at 9:30 a.m. 



Women’s Water Polo: 

The Panthers made it to 
the New England Division 
Championship final, page 25